Vera Molnár - Parler à l'œil

Vera Molnár, who died on 7 December 2023 at the age of 99, was a pioneer of digital art. Born in Budapest in 1924, she had lived in Paris since 1947.

Conceived around 1947 in a Constructivist spirit, her works developed into artistic explorations of optics as she drew on her growing knowledge of Gestalt psychology and the laws of vision. Working first with cybernetics and then with computing, Molnár devised a method of production in the 1960s that she called the “imaginary machine”. In 1968, she became the first artist in France to produce digital drawings using a computer connected to a plotter. Until the mid-1990s, she systematically explored families of forms, presenting their transformations, most often through repetition and seriality.

The exhibition opens with Vera Molnár’s early drawings, Geometric Trees and Hills (1946), which distil familiar landscapes to their essentials, even before her move to Paris in 1947. The 1950s are represented by compositions that place her firmly within the post-war geometric abstraction movement (Circles and Semicircles, 1953, Musée de Grenoble; Four Randomly Distributed Elements, 1959).
After producing paintings of striking radicalism (Icon, 1964; Nine Red Squares, 1966), Molnár began her series of algorithmic drawings entitled In Search of Paul Klee, anticipating her use of the computer.

Several series of drawings from the 1970s, now made using a plotter, demonstrate her interest in introducing a certain percentage of disorder into simple geometric compositions (Wandering Between Order and Chaos, 1975; 160 Squares Pushed to the Limit, 1976; Lines, Not Squares, 1976; Molnaroglyphs, 1977–1978).

The 1980s notably saw the appearance of Vera Molnár’s first polyptychs (Transformation, 1983), a format of which the Centre Pompidou holds several outstanding examples (Identical but Different, 2010). Reflecting Vera Molnár’s long engagement with the work of Albrecht Dürer, Albrecht’s Metamorphoses (1994–2017) traces the gradual transition from his monogram to her own across four paintings.
In the exhibition, not far from her Square Gone Astray (1999, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes), visitors can also discover, for the first time, Perspective of a Line (2014–2019), a previously unexhibited sculpture in stainless steel and anodised aluminium whose appearance changes as the viewer moves around it.

Vera Molnár’s photographic work is represented by several series (Studies on Sand, 2009; Shadows on Tiles, 2012; In Overcast Weather, 2012), while the twenty-two volumes of her “Intimate Diary” are displayed in their entirety. These ordinary school exercise books, bulging with diagrams, photographs and assorted documents pasted onto their pages, provide a unique record of the artist’s career and the genesis of many of her works.

Finally, several site-specific installations (OTTWW, 1981–2010, based on a poem by Shelley; Trapezoids Leaning to the Right (180%), 2009), including a very recent work (Life in M, 2023), created by Vera Molnár especially for the occasion, demonstrate her desire to immerse visitors in her world.

Cover: Vera Molnár, “Identical but Different”, 2010. © Adagp, Paris. Photo: Centre Pompidou, Mnam-Cci/Philippe Migeat/Dist. GrandPalaisRmn