Themes and Variations by Vera Molnár, in collaboration with Martin Grasser.
The illustrious computer art pioneer releases her first and only on-chain generative art project investigating three notorious letter forms that changed the conversation around digital art forever. Themes and Variations is Vera Molnár’s personal reflection towards her decades-long practice with the 'machine imaginaire' in the midst of an unforeseen digital art boom brought forward through the introduction of NFTs.
Themes and Variations encompasses a collection of 500 unique generative artworks. Within these works, Molnár passionately explores ideas she has delved into since the late 1960s when she first embarked upon the realm of algorithmic art. Central to her artistic expression is the seamless integration of letters as pure abstract forms, coupled with her affinity for embracing disorder. This deliberate choice grants the machine a certain level of autonomy, allowing it to challenge and even contradict the predefined rules established by Molnár herself. Thus, through this exploration of a dynamic interplay between the artist and the machine, uncharted territories within her creative practice are unveiled.
"All these variations around letters resonate in me like music. Even though I stopped playing the piano at the age of 15, music has never left me. I immediately think of Goldberg Variations or Beethoven's Diabelli Variations on a Waltz. That's why I gave the title Theme and Variations to the latest project with the letters N, F, and T that I am working on for my first and only long form generative art project."
Artist Bio
Vera Molnár, born in Budapest on January 5th, 1924, currently resides in Paris. She studied painting and obtained a diploma in art history and aesthetics from the Budapest College of Fine Arts between 1942 and 1947. During this time, she began creating non-representational images in 1946. In 1947, she moved to France after an artist fellowship in Rome at the Villa Julia and occasionally collaborated with François Molnár, whom she married in 1948. Molnár delved into the machine imaginaire method from 1959 to 1968. In 1960, she co-founded the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV) and exhibited in the Konkrete Kuns" (Concrete Art) exhibition in Zurich. She co-founded the Group Art et Informatique in 1967. Starting in 1968, she worked extensively with computer graphics and co-developed the "Molnart" software program with her husband. Notably, her first solo exhibition, Transformations, occurred in London in 1976, and she collaborated with the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1979.
Martin Grasser is an artist and designer based in the Bay Area. His journey in the world of fine art is driven by his deep connection with typography. His passion for type stems from his lifelong fascination with viewing letterforms, words, sentences and paragraphs as art itself. Grasser’s diverse background includes designing the Twitter logo, storytelling for Nike, and creating the Color Dot Font. Since 2022, Grasser has taken his practice onto the blockchain with three notable generative series: Squares, LOVE and Themes and Variations where he worked in collaboration with Vera Molnár a pioneer of computer art.
Provenance
Freddie
Acquired from above
NFT, minted 2023
js@na, variable size
Token ID: 304
Smart Contract: 0xe034bb2b1B9471e11cf1a0a9199a156fb227aa5D
Token Standard: ERC-721
Blockchain: Ethereum
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