This exhibition traces an unexpected lineage connecting Jean Arp, Hilla Rebay, and Louise Nevelson, three visionary artists united by their conviction that art is a spiritual force. Beyond the history of movements and “isms,” it reveals a more complex narrative shaped by passion, mentorship, and creative exchange. As Sarah Lea observes, “these moments of connection constitute the threads of the fabric of modernism as much as any groundbreaking exhibition or watershed work of art.”
From Arp and Rebay’s fervent intellectual intimacy during the birth of Dada, to Rebay’s encouragement of Nevelson in 1927, and finally to Arp’s poetic response to Nevelson’s sculpture, their stories form a cyclical lineage of inspiration. Each artist embraced collage as both method and metaphor, a space of freedom and experimentation where fragments could be reassembled into new harmonies.
Their kinship lay in the belief that art should unify life and creation. “In their separate searches for the spiritual capacity of creativity, these three artists also leave an inspiring legacy of artistic companionship,” adds Sarah Lea.
In this light, the practices of Arp, Rebay, and Nevelson reveal themselves not only as milestones of twentieth-century art, but as acts of generosity. Their practices resonate with mysticism, with theosophy, with the cycles of nature, and with the universal search for meaning that transcends cultural borders. Their lineage shows us that modernism was not just a history of movements, but also of encounters: a constellation of moments.
By highlighting these affinities, the exhibition invites us to rediscover modernism not as rupture but as resonance, where art becomes, in Nevelson’s words, a true “gift to the universe.”
