Understanding Constant’s New Babylon: A Place That Can Never Be?

Understanding Constant’s New Babylon:

A Place That Can Never Be?

Figure 1: Constant in his workplace at Wittenburg, Amsterdam, with several works from his New Babylon project, 1967. Image: Leonard Freed/Magnum/Hollandse Hoogte

Jip Hinten

Student Number: 10474617

Master Kunstgeschiedenis

Supervisor: Dr. Marga van Mechelen

Reader: Dr. Christa Maria Lerm Hayes

Date submitted: 2 February 2017

Universiteit van Amsterdam

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Summary

The objective of this text is to add to and correct several understandings of the Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuy’s life project New Babylon on which he worked for almost two decades, from roughly 1957 until 1974. The main incentive for this research has been the finding that while the project New Babylon has been studied by many scholars during and long after Constant worked on it, this has not only lead to a thorough understanding of the project, but also to the exact opposite. As New Babylon is structured around several paradoxical ideas and concepts such as freedom and control, reality and fantasy, art and society, several generalizations have been made that represent the project in a far too simplistic way.

Among these more general interpretations of New Babylon there seem to be two stances: New Babylon should be considered as reality, and, New Babylon should be considered as a fiction. While both these singular interpretations of the project are problematic in themselves, it is especially distressing that the first of the two stance seems to have been getting the upper hand. The goal of this text is thus to add to the collective effort of grasping the meaning, function, and usefulness of Constant’s New

Babylon. The question posed by the title of this thesis “a place that can never be?” is

meant as a starting point for a more thorough investigation of the project New Babylon itself, as well as other artistic projects. Besides thoroughly analysing Constant’s project, on a more general level, I wish to point out important similarities across various artistic practices, artists, and artworks, and in this process shed light on some of their differences as well. To do so, this text has been divided into three chapters.

Chapter one, called Revisiting New Babylon, consists of an extensive analysis of Constant’s New Babylon project, approaching it from an art historical rather than an architectural point of view. The project will be placed within a broader societal perspective as well, to demonstrate how on the one hand society has influenced New

Babylon, but also how Constant has influenced society with New Babylon. Besides

addressing the society out of which New Babylon emerged, the focus of my argument lies with the art historical context out of which it originates. Constants involvement with the Cobra movement and Situationist International are addressed, along with the influence of contemporary theorists, among whom two of the most important are Asger Jorn and Aldo van Eyck. The main question this section addresses is what new insights we can gain from removing New Babylon from the architectural realm it has been wrongfully placed in, and instead analyse it as an inherently artistic project.

Chapter two, called Presenting New Babylon Today, positions Constant’s project within the twenty-first century. It will begin by providing a brief retrospective of

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several exhibitions of New Babylon, to analyse the different ways in which the project has previously been presented. While Constant’s exhibitions of New Babylon have often been object to studies, they have not yet been thoroughly analysed altogether. Furthermore, this chapter includes a close reading of the New Babylon exhibition held at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague in 2016, as well as the concurrent exhibition held at the Cobra museum in Amstelveen. In exploring these most recent exhibitions in relation to past exhibitions, I have analysed whether the project is in fact presented differently than it has been before, and what those differences are. Has the focus on New Babylon shifted from the field of architecture to the field of visual art? And does this presentation of the project within the socio-political context of the twenty-first century provide room for new understandings of the New Babylon? Does it provide a context from which New Babylon can be approached within our contemporary society?

The final Chapter, The Aftermath of New Babylon, begins by briefly analysing the relation between art and social change. After this it provides several examples of works of art and artistic practices that are either directly inspired by Constants New Babylon, or elaborate on very similar ideas. The artists and collectives that are discussed include: Los Carpinteros, Carsten Höller, Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich, and Atelier Van Lieshout. By highlighting the similarities and differences of these projects, my aim is to evaluate the influence New Babylon has had on the art world, as well as emphasise the uniqueness and scope of the project once again.

In this text I am thus not only concerned with providing a thorough revision of Constant’s New Babylon once again, but aim to do so from a different point of view than has been done before, to add to the vast scholarly field exploring the oeuvre of Constant, by claiming the necessity to understand New Babylon, for it to be at least in part, an artistic project.

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Table of Contents

Summary………...p. 3

Introduction………..p. 7

Chapter 1: Revisiting New Babylon………...p. 15

1.1 Constant Nieuwenhuys: Provocateur until the End

p. 16

1.2 The road to New Babylon: From CoBrA to Situationist p. 24

International

1.3 New Babylon: Creativity as Highest Ideal

p. 38

1.4 Beyond Art: New Babylon and Society

p. 49

Chapter 2: Presenting New Babylon Today……….p. 59

2.1 Exhibiting New Babylon: A Retrospective

p. 64

2.2 New Babylon anno 2016

p. 73

Chapter 3: The Aftermath of New Babylon………..p. 82

3.1 Art and/as Social Change

p. 84

3.2 Utopian Art After New Babylon

p. 95

Conclusion………p. 106

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Acknowledgements

After working on this thesis for almost a year, it has finally come to an end. I could not have finished it without the help and support of the several people. For that I hereby say thank you all. I would like to thank one person in particular here, namely my supervisor Marga van Mechelen. Thank you for your endless patience, valuable critical input, and support the past months.

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Introduction

I am. We are.

That is enough. Now we have to start.1

Utopia: an ideal place that can never be. It was Sir Thomas More who coined the term

utopia in 1516 from the Greek ou-topos, meaning ‘no place’ or ‘nowhere’ and the almost identical eu-topos, meaning ‘good place.’ After the earliest incarnation of a utopia in Plato’s Republic, More asks a more direct question about this philosophical concept by ascribing a double meaning to his imagined society: can a perfect place ever exist in the real world?2 _{More’s Utopia is constructed around a paradox: while it is}

clearly a critique on the society More himself lived in, it is also unmistakably a fictional place. It is this paradox that is inherent to the project that Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys (1920-2005) dedicated almost twenty years of his life to: New Babylon. While New Babylon is just one of the many utopias –and not to forget dystopias- that were envisioned after More’s key publication, there is something that cannot quite be grasped about New Babylon that has made it stand out, and still makes it stand out today. It does not come as a surprise then, that the venerable subject of utopia in general, and New Babylon in specific, has gotten its fair share of attention.3

Around the turn of the twentieth century, when society was rapidly changing as a result of globalisation and the rise of the Internet, a renewed interest emerged within contemporary art among artists, curators, art fairs and museums to yet again turn towards utopian future visions as a source of inspiration and exploration. This, as Martin van Schaik calls it, “utopian frenzy” that took place at the end of the previous millennium, came with a flood of books, essays and exhibitions about utopias and ideal

1 _{Ernst Bloch, The Spirit of Utopia (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2000(1918)), 1.}

2 _{George Sanderlin, “The Meaning of Thomas More’s “Utopia””, College English 12:2 (1950):}

74-77.

3 _{For different philosophical understandings of utopias see for example publications by Ernst}

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worlds within the intellectual and artistic market.4 Even the rise of the latest format of artistic display, the biennial, can in itself be seen as an embodiment of a utopia. As Hans Ulrich Obrist argues “biennials are both places and non-places”. 5 _{It seems like}

we, as citizens of the world, are more than ever referring back to this ancient search for happiness, freedom and paradise. As Theodor Adorno puts it, we are desperately looking for “a fantasy of an exotic vacation from insistent, plaguing social problems; Utopia has become a deserted island of cliché. 6

In result, the largest part of publications on the topic tends to focus on the

architectural aspects or moral merit of utopian projects. Given the formally inspirational

effect the project has had on well known architects, such as Aldo van Eyck and Superstudio, and more recently Rem Koolhaas and RAAAF,7 _{New Babylon has not}

only been celebrated as the perfect example of such an utopia, it has also been presented as a project that could actually be realized.8 _{The publication of an extensive}

study on New Babylon by architect and theorist Mark Wigley “Constant’s New Babylon: They Hyper-Architecture of Desire” in 1998 and the related exhibition held at the Witte de With Center for contemporary art in Rotterdam, played an important role in once again putting New Babylon in the spotlights of the international art world from an architectural point of view. Despite my personal disliking of Wigley’s architectural approach, which I will go further into when discussing New Babylon in chapter 1, the exhibition at the Witte de With Center did put forward an important view on Constants project. Even though he stopped working on his project in the 1970s, the Witte de With Center claimed this renewed interest in New Babylon was an opportunity to “shed light on contemporary architectural and artistic experiments. Much of Constant’s work resonates with current investigations, from the concern with electronic space down to

4 _{Martin Van Schaik, “Introduction,” in Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76 by Martin}

Van Schaik, Otakar Marcel (New York, London: Prestel Publishing, 2005)

5 _{Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ways of Curating (New York: Penguin Books, 2014),130.} 6 _Ibid.

7_{Henny de Lange, “Durf eens een bunker door te zagen”, Trouw, 28 May 2016.} 8 _{Van Schaik, “Introduction,” in Exit Utopia.}

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specific model-making techniques.”9 The exhibition was followed by a symposium and exhibition in New York in 1999, titled “Constant’s New Babylon: Another City for Another Life.” Thirty years after Constant had put his project aside, it was exhibited in the United States for the first time. In 2002 Constant’s models were exhibited at Documenta 11 in Kassel. In the following years New Babylon keeps surfacing again and again during thematic exhibitions, in publications, and the work of individual artists. During Art Basel in 2015 a salon talk was held with Ludo van Halem, curator of 20th

century art at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, and Mark Wigley, in which they discussed the relevance of New Babylon within contemporary art. In the summer of 2016, an exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague took place in which the full New

Babylon project was presented once again. This continuation of interest for New Babylon calls for the question why this project is still considered to be relevant over fifty

years after Constant first initiated it. What makes this project more interesting and relevant than any other utopian future vision?

Constant’s future visions were closely linked to the changing society of the 1950s and 60s in which they originate, but many of the concepts he was concerned with are again subject to change, causing for debates in our contemporary society. Technology is developing faster than ever before, and concerns about controlling the climate are becoming more serious every day. Our freedom to move around the globe without restrictions is under threat. Furthermore, there seems to be an increasing focus on the concept of creativity, both within the academic and professional world, challenging our understanding of what it actually means to be creative. However, whether we are moving towards a conception of creativity and autonomy as Constant foresaw it is disputable.10

9 _{“Constant- New Babylon. Saturday 21 November 1997- Saturday 10 January 1998”,}

Exhibitions – Our Program – Witte De With. Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Web. 15 March. 2016.

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Why Constant’s New Babylon again?

An unavoidable question with a subject as vast and thoroughly studied as Constant’s New Babylon is: why write another research about New Babylon? Is there really a need for another analysis of the utopian visions of Constant, a need to yet again delve into his project? What could possibly be the value, of yet another text about Constant, other than simply rehashing what has already been written? Similarly, these same questions can be asked about the 2016 exhibition of New Babylon at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. Why organize another exhibition of Constant’s project?

Even though New Babylon has been exhibited mainly within art institutes and museums, the main bulk of research that is focused on New Babylon does so from an architectural point of view. The Gemeentemuseum, however, explicitly states they want to focus on the artistic aspect of New Babylon:

“After mounting major exhibitions on New Babylon in 1965 and 1974, the Gemeentemuseum received almost the entire project for its collection. In recent years, interest in New Babylon has rocketed. The Gemeentemuseum has now joined hands with Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia to create a new exhibition focusing not just on the architectural aspects of New Babylon, but also on the project’s status as a single vast ‘work of art’.”11

It is of course important not to fall blindly for the trap museums tend to create. Obviously they will argue the exhibition they organise is relevant, highly necessary, and different than exhibitions on the same topic that have been held before. However, their arguments are based on thorough art historical research and their exhibitions can thus function as a valuable resource as long as they are taken into consideration with a cautious mind, and eye.

11 _{“Constant-New Babylon. To Us, Liberty.” Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Gemeentemuseum}

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Besides museums, there seems to be an interest for themes that focus on ‘The Future’ in art fairs and biennales and thus among artists. Some prominent examples include the 2015 Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor, titled All the World’s Futures, the art manifestation Yes Naturally held at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague in 2013, and the project Utopia Station initiated by Hans Ulrich Obrist in 2003.12 _New Babylon not only serves as a platform that continues to inspire architects, curators,

museums, and artists, and even the design of airports and shopping malls,13 _{and in}

effect provides grounds for new interpretations of the project itself, but New Babylon can also provide a base on which we can build our understanding of several developments within the contemporary arts and its relation to visions of the future and society. As Constant himself stated in 1949 “Art should function as a weapon of the human spirit, as a tool for the construction, the transformation of the world, and the artist as a diligent worker who subordinates all his abilities, all his activities to the common effort and who does not seek to be great but to be useful.”14

Can we use, or even need art to explore future visions? The distance between art and real life has closed under the influence of globalization.15 As Arthur Danto described “the art world stands to the real world in something like the relationship in which the City of God stands to the earthly city.” 16 According to Pamela M. Lee, the work of art itself functions as a mediator between these two formerly separate realms.17

However, I believe that a certain distinction should still be made between actual society and the artistic realm, as “fiction’s power lies in its ability to open up fictional worlds for our reflective engagement.”18 In this thesis I therefore propose that it is necessary to

12 _{Obrist, Ways of Curating, 130-134.}

13 _{For example, Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, or the shopping mall “New Babylon” in The}

Hague

14 _{Constant Nieuwenhuys, “C’est notre désir qui fait la revolution”, in Les artistes libres, Cobra 4}

(1949).

15 _{Pamela M. Lee, Forgetting the Art World (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2012), 186.} 16 _Ibid.

17 _Ibid.

18 _{Ananta Ch. Sukla (ed.) Fiction in Art: Explorations in Contemporary Theory (London:}

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acknowledge that New Babylon was in essence a utopian artistic project, and not an architectural project that was created to be realized in the end.

Structure

Among the interpretations of New Babylon, (even by Constant himself), there seem to be two stances: New Babylon should be considered as reality, and, New Babylon should be considered as a fiction. The first stance seems to be getting the upper hand. Even though perhaps rather ambitious, my goal is to provide some further steps in the collective effort of grasping the meaning, function, and usefulness of Constant’s New

Babylon. The question posed by the title of this thesis “a place that can never be?” is

meant as a starting point for a more thorough investigation of the project New Babylon itself, as well as other artistic projects. Besides thoroughly analysing Constant’s project, on a more general level, I wish to point out important similarities across various artistic practices, artists, and artworks, and in this process shed light on some of their differences as well. To do so, this text will be divided into three chapters.

Chapter one, called Revisiting New Babylon, is the largest section of the text and mainly consists of an extensive analysis of Constant’s New Babylon project, approaching it from an art historical rather than an architectural point of view. To establish in what ways Constant’s project was influenced by the society and politics from which it emerged, the Netherlands in the 1950s, 60s, and not to forget 70s, and how the project in its turn influenced society around it, several factors will be addressed. An increase of the population, along with people’s sudden ability to spend more free time, vastly changed the structure of Dutch society. The political movement Provo emerged, and new futuristic architectural projects were proposed and sometimes even realised. 19 _{I will briefly contrast contemporary ideas within}

architectural theory to New Babylon, and not, as is usually done, place them along the

19 _{An interesting project in relation to the work of Constant is the “City for the Future” (1960-65)}

project by Dutch architect Willem Brinkman (1931). While the visual similarities are compelling, Brinkman’s focus was on how Constant’s ideas could be applied in a form of utilitarian

architecture and thus will not be discussed thoroughly as this is not the approach I will follow in my research.

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same line, to emphasise the artistic qualities of the project. However, besides addressing the society out of which New Babylon emerged, the focus of my argument lies with the art historical context out of which it originates. Constants involvement with the Cobra movement and Situationist International will be addressed, along with the influence of contemporary theorists, among whom two of the most important are Asger Jorn and Aldo van Eyck. The main question this section aims to address is what new insights we can gain from removing New Babylon from the architectural realm it has been wrongfully placed in, and instead analyse it as an inherently artistic project.

Chapter two, called Presenting New Babylon Today, positions Constants project within the twenty-first century. It will begin by providing a brief retrospective of several exhibitions of New Babylon, to analyse the different ways in which the project has previously been presented. After this, the main focus of this section will be a close reading of the New Babylon exhibition held at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague in 2016, as well as the concurrent exhibition held at the Cobra museum in Amstelveen, exploring whether the project is in fact presented differently than it was in past exhibitions, and what those differences are. Has the focus on New Babylon shifted from the field of architecture to the field of visual art? And does this presentation of the project within the socio-political context of the twenty-first century provide room for new understandings of the New Babylon? Does it provide a context from which New

Babylon can be approached within our contemporary society?

The final Chapter, The Aftermath of New Babylon, will begin by briefly analysing the relation between art and social change. After this it will provide several examples of works of art and artistic practices that are either directly inspired by Constants New Babylon, or elaborate on very similar ideas. The artists and collectives that will be discussed include: Los Carpinteros, Carsten Höller, Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich, and Atelier Van Lieshout. By highlighting the similarities and differences of these projects, my aim is to evaluate the influence New Babylon has had on the art world, as well as emphasise the uniqueness and scope of the project once again.

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As this outline suggests, I am concerned with not only providing a thorough revision of Constant’s New Babylon once again, but aim to do so from a different point of view than has been done before by claiming on the necessity to understand New

Babylon, for it to be at least in part, an artistic project. It should then not come as a

coincidence, or surprise, that Constant himself eventually returned to one of the most classic forms of visual art at the end of his career: painting.

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Chapter 1: Revisiting New Babylon

“In art freedom manifests itself in its highest form. The creative imagination.

Art creates an image of the world that didn’t exist before. No. More than that.

An image that was unthinkable before.” - Constant, 199120

The main question this section will address is what new insights we can gain from removing New Babylon from the architectural realm from which it is often approached, and instead analyse it as an inherently artistic project.

A specific emphasis will be laid on the way in which Constant’s understanding of humanity and society has evolved throughout his career, as this can contribute to a more thorough understanding of the changing nature of New Babylon.

Figure 2: Constant, La liberté insultant le peuple, 1975, Oil on linen, 140 x 150 cm. Available from : Stichting Constant, stichtingconstant.nl. Image : Tom Haarts

20 _{Quote from Constant’s acceptance speech “Verzet ook nu” after receiving the Verzetsprijs in}

1991, published in Verzetsprijzen 1991: teksten uitgesproken bij de uitreiking 4 mei in De Nieuwe Kerk te Amsterdam (Nijmegen: SUN, 1991). Translated from Dutch by author.

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1.1 Constant Nieuwenhuys: Provocateur until the End

“No artist tolerates reality.”21

“The past invariably mirrors our own times.”22

It was one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century, Friedrich Nietzsche who argued over a century ago that no artist should tolerate reality. No longer than a decade ago, a Dutch architecture student called Martin van Schaik claimed that the past invariably mirrors our own times. These two statements provide the starting point for my analysis of the ideas and practice of Constant Nieuwenhuys. However, there seems to be no better way to commence a study about an artist than by closely looking at the actual work produced by that artist. It is therefore that I would like to begin with an image of the painting La liberté insultant le peuple (fig. 2), which Constant finished in 1975. At first sight, this work might not seem like the most obvious point of departure for an attempt at a deeper understanding of Constant’s life project New Babylon. As a matter of fact, La liberté insultant le peuple appears to defy most of the values and ideas New Babylon stands for. The freedom of the inhabitants of New Babylon, who are no longer burdened by labour and can spend their days indulging in creativity and a higher level of autonomy, shaping the environment around them as they please, does not seem to be reflected in the blood-shed representation of chaos depicted on this painting. Both the title and the image itself allude to the fact that by the 1970s Constant was no longer dreaming of the utopian society he had envisioned before. As the title indicates, the work represents ‘the insulting freedom of the people; it is as if Constant has realized total freedom does not necessarily lead to peace, but can also lead to the opposite.

After working on his life project New Babylon for almost two decades from the 1950s until the early 1970s, in 1974 Constant Nieuwenhuys leaves most of the project to the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, clears out his studio, and starts painting

21_{Friedrich Nietsche as cited in Oscar Levy (ed.) Friedrich Nietzsche. Complete Works (London}

1909-15) vol. 15: The Will to Power, translated by Anthony M. Ludovici (London 1909-15) 74.

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again. Even though there are still architectural structures visible in his paintings, which refer to his earlier work, the utopian undertone of Constant’s New Babylon seem nowhere to be found. Instead of continuing to depict his ideas of a better society, Constant gradually turns towards representing the grim reality of the world around him. The horrors of the war in Vietnam, refugees in Kosovo and famine in Africa are clearly inspiring his work from the late 1960s onwards. While the topics Constant touches on in the 1970s were very much reflecting the developments of society and the art world around him, the medium and style Constant chose to depict these topics shows a sharp contrast to the changing art world around him. In opposition to the mechanical collages of Pop-art, the lean towards three-dimensional work of minimal art, and the dematerialization of the art object that lead to conceptual art, Constant decided to return to one of the most traditional techniques within art history: oil painting. He reverts to several of the classical masters of art history such as Titian, Delacroix, and Cézanne. Especially Cézanne is of great interest to Constant, as he writes about him in the publication À propos de Cézanne, and further develops his colorism creating depth and space solely with colour without using lines.23 It should be noted that Constant’s return to painting cannot blindly be taken as an abandonment of New Babylon altogether. As some scholars have argued, Constant used painting as a means to an educative end. Since the models he created for New Babylon were not always as successful tools for conveying his ideas, Constant believed painting could be used to “make the unknown visible,”24 _{as he felt that paintings could function as “a window onto}

a different world.”25

While this return towards painting was criticized by some of his contemporaries, others were more appreciative. Rudi Fuchs was one of the art critics who responded in a more positive way to Constant’s paintings, as in 1995 he states the following in the

23 _{Trudy van der Horst, Constant: De late periode (Nijmegen: BnM uitgevers, 2008), 240-250.} 24 _{Constant Nieuwenhuys, Catalogus Constant Schilderijen 1940-1980 (voorwoord J.L. Locher)}

(The Hague: Gemeentemuseum, 1980)

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foreword to the catalogue of the paintings of Constant: “Some consider Constant’s return to painting a return to tradition. I, however, do not share this opinion. I consider his development from the seventies as a deeper penetration into the garden of painting.”26 _{Constant’s choice to begin painting again, in contrast to what many artists}

around him were doing, is one of the many times during his career he, as it seems, deliberately chose a different direction than his contemporaries. As Constant said himself “I am not a designer but a provocateur.”27 _{This, I believe can be argued to be}

the idea that lies at the core of his career, and what led him to create his New Babylon.

26 _{Marcel Hummelink, Constant. Paintings 1948-1995 (Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum}

Amsterdam, 1995), 4.

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Available from : Stichting Constant, stichtingconstant.nl.

Figure 4: Mrs E. Kookorris-Syrie, COBRA members bringing their work to First International Exhibition of Experimental Artists, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, November 1949, black

and white photograph. Available from: tate.org.uk. Courtesy: W. Stokvis Archive, Amsterdam

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The Hague.

Figure 6: Constant, Compositie met 158 blokjes, 1953, oil on panel, 122.1 x 121 cm, Gemeentemuseum The Hague.

Figure 7: Constant, Compositie met blauwe en witte blokjes, 1953, oil on wood, 60 x 59.8 cm. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.

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1952-1953. Available at:http://www.sikkensfoundation.org/en/sikkensprijs/aldo_1960.html

Figure 8.2: Reconstuction of ‘een ruimte in kleur’ in the exhibition ‘Constant. Space + Colour’ at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen, 28 May- 25 September 2016.

Image by author.

Figure 8.3: Reconstruction of of ‘een ruimte in kleur’ in the exhibition ‘Constant. Space + Colour’ at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen, 28 May- 25 September 2016.

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Figure 9: Constant, Constructie met gekleurde vlakken, 1954, iron, plexiglass, 119.5 x 62 x 57,2 cm, Collection Fondation Constant longterm loan to Stedelijk Museum Schiedam.

Image by author.

Figure 10 : Constant, Construction aux plans transparants, 1954, aluminum, plexiglass, 76 x 76 x 50 cm, Collection Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Image : Tom Haarts.

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wood and oil paint, height: 10,2 cm, section: 125 cm, Gemeentemuseum The Hague.

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1.2 The road to New Babylon: From Cobra to Situationist International

“It is a matter of achieving the unknown by a deregulation of the senses”28

Quoting Arthur Rimbaud in relation to his New Babylon project in 1974, Constant summarizes an important aspect of the utopian society he envisioned, namely the achieving of the unknown. While he refers to Rimbaud more specifically in relation to his Door Labyrinth that he created especially as the closing ‘work’ for the final exhibition of New Babylon in its entirety held during his life (of course he did not know this at the time), this achievement of the unknown through the process of deregulation, is a concept that can be applied to the whole project of New Babylon, and, as I would like to argue, perhaps to Constant’s entire career. As I indicated already Constant referred to himself as a provocateur; and, as I will demonstrate also acted accordingly. However, his life and art should not be interpreted as being motivated by random acts of rebellion, but as a well thought out search for an alternative society, in which art was not only a means to an end, but also the end itself.

In “New Babylon: The Antinomies of Utopia,”29 _{1996, Hilde Heynen offers an}

interesting and refreshing view on Constant’s New Babylon, connecting the project to the idea presented by Theodor W. Adorno in his Aesthetic Theory (1970) that the involvement of art with utopia gives rise to one of the most central antinomies that determine the present condition of art:

“One of the crucial antinomies of art today is that it wants to be and must be squarely Utopian, as social reality increasingly impedes Utopia, while at the same time it should not be Utopian

28 _{Arthur Rimbaud as cited by Constant in “New Babylon, een schets voor een kultuur,: in New}

Babylon, exhibition catalogue (The Hague: Haags Gemeentemuseum, 1974), 57.

29 _{The essay is part of a larger study published in the book Architecture and the Critique of}

Modernity, 1999. Interestingly, while the focus of her research lies with architecture, she does not approach Constant’s New Babylon from within this field of studies, but instead focuses on it’s qualities as a work of art, building her argument around a vast visual analysis of the project.

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so as not to be found guilty of administering comfort and illusion.”30

Drawing on Hegelian dialectics,31 _{Heynen goes on to describe New Babylon as follows:}

“As a project that strives to be an embodiment of the utopian end situation of history, it is based on the negation of all that is false and fraudulent in the present societal condition. The ultimate quality of the project however does not stem from its potential to offer a harmonic or idyllic image of this future. On the contrary,

New Babylon does not lend itself as an instrument of semblance

or consolation. It truth lies in its very negativity and in the dissonances that pervade the images of harmony.”32

As I will demonstrate, this ‘negative’ quality of New Babylon, can be argued to be rooted in the writings and art produced by Constant leading up to the project, and were already present at the beginning of his life and career. Furthermore, it is also this negation of the ‘present societal condition’ combined with the paradoxical qualities of

New Babylon that places the project in line with the dialectical process advocated by

Hegel. In linking the ideological basis of his project not only to the direct society from which it emerged, the 1950s and 60s of the Netherlands, but tracing it back to his entire artistic career, the artistic qualities can be emphasized and argued to be of more significance than the architectural qualities of the project. Having established some of the basic conceptions to keep in mind when revisiting ‘the road to’ Constant’s New Babylon, I will now turn to addressing several key moments that are of relevance to his New Babylon project in particular. Since his life and career have been thoroughly

30 _{Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), 47.} 31 _{Esepcially Hegel’s rejection of the traditional reduction ad absurdum argument, that states}

“when the premises of an argument lead to a contradiction, then the premises must be discarded altogether, leaving nothing,” is relevant in relation to New Babylon, as the project is build around several paradoxes. See: Robert C. Solomon, In the Spirit of Hegel: A Study of G.W.F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 383.

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discussed by scholars, I will not resort to a full revision, but instead focus on several key moments to substantiate my argument.33

Born in 1920 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Constant developed an interest in art at an early age34_{, at first mainly focusing on the traditions and techniques of the}

great masters. In an interview in 2005 he describes how impressed he was by the work of Delacroix that he saw at the exhibition A Hundred Years of French Painting at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. And how the first thing he took from the library when, at the age of 18 or 19 he enrolled as a student at the Amsterdam Rijksacademie, were Delacroix’s diaries.35 _{Clearly, early on in his career he developed an interest in the}

expression of ideas through text, and not solely through paintings or images. As is generally known, Constant’s ideas radically changed when he travelled to Paris for the first time in 1946. It was here that he met the Danish painter Asger Jorn, with whom two years later he started the Cobra group. Constant’s Cobra membership was short-lived,36 but it was during these years that Constant wrote his first manifesto in 1948 to promote and explain the visions of the Reflex Experimental Group.37_{The main idea that}

drove this group of artists was that the process of creating art, and the experience upon which it is based is more important than the individual artist or even the final work itself. Furthermore, they believed that the artist and the art that they created should be continuously changing. It was within this manifesto that Constant stated: "A painting is not a structure of colours and lines, but an animal, a night, a cry, a man, or all of these together.”38 _{This emphasis of the liveliness of painting was a clear protest against the}

cold, abstract works that were created by members of the Dutch movement De Stijl. It

33 _{See for example, Trudy van der Horst, “Biografie van Constant. Amsterdam, 1920 – Utrecht,}

2005” in exhibition catalogue Constant New Babylon. Aan ons de vrijheid (The Hague: Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 2016): 226-239.

34 _{He was only sixteen years old when he made his first painting De Emmaüsgangers (Pélerins}

d’Emmaus) see fig. 3.

35_{Linda Boersma, “Constant”, BOMB 91 (2005).}

36 _{He was only a member of the Cobra group from 1948-1951}

37 _{He founded this group together with Karel Appel, Corneille and his own brother, Jan}

Nieuwenhuys

38 _{Constant Nieuwenhuys, “Manifesto”, Reflex: orgaan van de experimentele groep in Holland 1} (1948).

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is also the first moment that demonstrates the way in which Constant constructed his ideas about society, in the form of a negation of the existing consensus. As Mark Wigley has indicated, it is within the paintings Constant created during this period that the architecture and violence present in New Babylon is already clearly visible. As Wigley argues, and I agree, “the combination of human tragedy and architecture which is either falling apart or being constructed is absolutely a constant in Constant.

Architecture from the beginning and violence from the beginning.”39_{This violence is also} reflected in “C’est notre désir qui fait la revolution,” one of Constants most militant yet beautiful texts in which he takes a stance against the work of Mondrian and De Stijl:

“To create means to produce that which was unknown before, and the unknown instils fear in those who believe that they have something to maintain or to guard. We however, who have nothing to lose but our shackles, we are not afraid of the adventure. The only thing we risk exists in the loss of a rather sterile virginity, the virginity of the abstract. We must soil the virginal purity of Mondrian, be it merely with our misery. Isn’t misery to be chosen before death, at least for those who are strong enough to fight?”40

The rebelliousness that can be derived from this quote is very much in accordance with the still rather young and anarchistic persona that Constant aims to be during the late 1950s. Poet Gerrit Kouwenaar, who had a close friendship with Constant, describes him as follows:

“Constant had fairly long hair and a melancholic moustache. He was wearing an eccentric purple suit that was too loose for him, and high shoes with bare feet, like some of the dandies on prints by

39 _{Mark Wigley in “Salon/Architect Talk/ Constant’s New Babylon”, Art Basel, June 2015.}

Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgv4cL77n38 See for example Constant’s painting The little ladder, 1949 (fig. 5)

40 _{Constant Nieuwenhuys, “Begeerte heeft ons aangeraakt”, typoscript (1949). The Hague, RKD}

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Dubout. I immediately admired him. Those days he lived in de Pijp and smoked from a red-stone pipe, of which the head resembled a grinning devils face.”41

The way Constant dresses in his younger years reflects a carelessness, but one that seems to be carefully constructed. He is a good singer, can play the guitar and has a broad repertoire including flamenco music.42 _{While I do not want to present my}

argument too simple or bluntly, it can be suggested that the free, careless, but also slightly decadent lifestyle of the Experimental Group did reflect the way in which they painted.

While the Dutch public had finally gotten used to the idea of avant-garde painting in the form of the prim clarities of the works of now internationally praised artists like Mondrian, they were not ready yet to accept the messy, wild images created by the Cobra group. However, Willem Sandberg, the director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, did appreciate the art made by the Cobra group, and thus became an influential patron and promoter of their work. In 1949 Sandberg supplied the group with large canvases, which they used to create paintings that would be shown on the First

International Exhibition of Experimental Art (fig. 4) held that same year at the Stedelijk

Museum in Amsterdam.43 Two flourishing years followed for Cobra, culminating in the Cobra exhibition in 1951 at the Palais de Beaux-Arts. The exhibition, on which work by 33 artists from 11 different countries was presented, was partly financed by collectors. As a result, many of the participating artists had no close ties to the revolutionary foundations of Cobra at all. Cobra did not manage to resist the market it had tried to rebel against and by 1951 it had become a part of the established art-world. As a last

41 _{Opening statement by Gerrit Kouwenaar for the exhibition by Constant in the Amsterdam}

Gallery Le Canard at 26 January 1952, as cited in Van der Horst, “Biografie van Constant.” Translated by the author.

42 _{Van der Horst, “Biografie van Constant”, 228.}

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gesture of revolt against the art world the demise of the group was announced in Cobra magazine soon after the exhibition.44

After the acceptance and thus end of Cobra as an avant-garde movement, Constant turned a completely different way once again. He moved towards the cold abstraction he had been fervently criticizing the years before.45 _{In 1952 he went to}

study in London for three months after receiving a scholarship from the Arts Council of Great Britain. The city was just recovering from the bombings of World War II and was being rebuild in a clean and practical, but according to Constant immensely dull way, resulting in a built environment with no room for creativity and play. Looking back at his

New Babylon project in 1981 Constant explains to Freddy the Vree that the turning

point in his career was this moment he briefly turned towards abstraction in 1952: “ I felt it was necessary to jump over that hedge and browse in that cold abstraction. Because I realized that, while we were busy with Cobra, the people around us had erected entire new city districts, which were part of that abstraction froide: straight lines, steel structures, large concrete surfaces. I wanted to explore this area for myself, aesthetically. (…) It eventually led me to New Babylon.”46

After his stay in London, Constant moves back to Amsterdam in the summer of 1952, where he further develops his interest in spatial architecture and its relation to three-dimensional works. His time in London made him think about the question of how art can contribute to an encompassing intensification of life. As a result, Constant produces two-dimensional works that are radically different from his Cobra work, constructing collages and reliefs with interlocking colour planes, and works such as

Compositie met 158 blokjes, 1953, (fig. 6) that show a resemblance to Russian

44 _{“If a gang of avant-gardists wants to have a utopian impact, it must vanish into the world it}

hopes to change.” As cited in Carter Ratcliff, “Snakes & ladders. The Cobra group, sons of the surrealists”, Tate Magazine 4 (2003).

45 _{Even though he created works that visually were in line with De Stijl paintings, this did not}

mean that completely adopted their ideology or suddenly agreed with their ideals. See paragraph 1.3. for a more elaborate explanation of Constant’s brief turn to abstraction.

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constructivism. In 1953 he makes the relief Compositie met blauwe en witte blokjes, (fig. 7) for the first time adding an extra dimension to the two-dimensional painting.

Together with architect Aldo van Eyck (1918-1999) he creates a space for the exhibition Man and House at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from 1952-1953 (fig. 8)47 _{Their exhibition was awarded with the Sikkens Prize in 1960 for their “active and}

creative contributions to the synthesis of space and color.”48 _{They linked the connection}

between space and color to the integration of art and society; something that had been highly valued since members of De Stijl experimenting with this. It was especially the manifesto “For a spatial colorism” published in 1953 as an appendix to the publication that accompanied the eponymous exhibition Man and House that had left a huge impression. In their manifesto, Van Eyck and Constant, the architect and the artist, declare that color is not used to its full capacity within modern architecture. They argue color appears in a random and passive way, and as a result does not have the emotional impact on space it should have, since color is equally important to determine a space as the constructive elements of the space. “Color is nothing other than the color of the form and the form is nothing other than the form of the color.”49 Color should not be seen as something to be added after construction, but should be realized in relation to it. Constant continues to explore the relationship between architecture and colour in the following years.

Of course, not all Constant’s contemporaries immediately accepted his new ideas about the interaction between the artist and the architect. The Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld responded to Constant’s manifest with quite some critique, confronting

47 _{Constant and Van Eyck had worked together before, though not as closely as they did in}

1952. Three years earlier they both participated in the First International Exhibition of Experimental Art in 1949; Sandberg had commissioned van Eyck to design the exhibition.

48 _{“Aldo van Eyck and Constant Nieuwenhuys” SikkensFoundation (1960). Available at:}

http://www.sikkensfoundation.org/en/sikkensprijs/aldo_1960.html

49 _{Constant Nieuwenhuys, Aldo van Eyck, “Voor een spatiaal colorisme”, Forum. Maandblad}

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Constant with several flaws in his theories.50 Rietveld’s criticism deeply influenced Constant, causing him to not only rethink his manifest but also question the entire role of the artist. He expresses his doubts in a letter to Rietveld, in which he really seeks to justify the way in which art and the artist can add something valuable to architecture. He comes to the conclusion that, even though the traditional role of the individual artist creating autonomous paintings no longer has any use, the artist’s understanding of colour is still of value. He explains in his letter,

“With the disappearance of the need for the most individual painting by the individual painter, does in no way disappear the need for the typical color-plastic nature of the painter.” 51_{. He goes on to state,}

“With the emergence of a new, more static form of society in sight, we have to take into account that the revolutionary task of the “Free” artist is not everlasting, even though for now his revolutionary and his social activities can function side by side. The gradual ceasing of the revolutionary function of the artist can however not be seen as an impoverishment, since the many milestones on the way from chaos to order do not constitute an objective of art. The objective of art is the regulation that lies at the end of that road. When this objective has been reached, the personality of the painter might become less interesting in our individualistic eyes, but his task does definitely not become less important for society.”52

Constants ideas started to become more and more influenced by the rapidly changing environment around him: he wanted to break with the monotony of urban planning in which rows of blocks of similar houses were built all over the Netherlands,

50 _{Despite, or perhaps because of their discussion about the role of colour in architecture,}

Rietveld invites Constant to design the colorscheme of the interior of a model home for the Dutch department store de Bijenkorf that Rietvveld designed for Martin Visser in 1954.

51 _{Constant Nieuwenhuys, “Letter by Constant to Gerrit Rietveld,” RKD- Netherlands Institute for}

Art History. Translated by author.

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and oppose the political power structure of the 1950s.53 During these years Constant seeks a connection with like-minded artists and architects. He visits the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, works together with architects, among whom were Stephen Gilbert, a former Cobra member and Nicolas Schöffer, a Hungarian sculptor. Together with with Schöffer and Gilbert he establishes the collective called ‘Néovision,’ in 1954. The artists challenge Constant to experiment with three-dimensional sculptures, leading him to create Constructie met gekleurde vlakken (1954)(fig. 9) and Construction aux plans transparants (1954)(fig. 10). He adopts the angular shapes of Gilbert and Schöffer but soon replaces these with more curved shapes as he believes that constructions based on “l’infini des paraboles” have a stronger effect on the surrounding space than constructions that are based on the closed shape of a box.54 Constant’s move into a different direction leads him to again break with yet another group of artists.

Shortly after this, Constant is invited by Asger Jorn to join him in Alba, Italy, at a congress initiated by ‘Mouvement pour un Bauhaus Imaginiste’ (International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus) dedicated to ‘Industry and the Fine Arts.’ Despite their differences on a personal level, to put it lightly, they kept in contact after their break in Denmark, exchanging ideas about the role of art in society.55 Constant gives a lecture at the congress, Demain la poésie logera la vie (Tomorrow, Life will Reside in

Poetry) in which he pleads for an architecture that is liberated and stimulates creativity.

He encourages architects to grasp the opportunities of new technological developments, declaring “scientific techniques seem only to be awaiting an aesthetic with a clear outlook for their deployment.” 56 _{He elaborates on an article he wrote}

53 _{Van der Horst, Constant. De late periode.}

54 _{Marcel Hummelink, Apres nous la liberté: Constant en de artistieke avant-garde in de jaren}

1946-1960 (Amsterdam: s.n. (uitgave in eigen beheer), 2003), 130.

55 _{Constant’s wife Matie had left him for Jorn a few years earlier, resulting in a break of their}

friendship.

56 _{Written in Paris, 19 August 1956, by Constant as a statement to the First World Congress of}

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earlier, “Le technisisme”, in 1956. In this text Constant sketches the large gap that has emerged between the visual arts and architecture, because of the fact that artists have not engaged with the aesthetic possibilities of modern materials such as Plexiglas, plastic, metal and concrete. As a result, most industrial products have are lacking in their aesthetic design and visual art is used purely as a decorative tool in the built environment, Constant pleads for a new type of aesthetics which he calls “technicism.” He furthermore expresses his affinity for architecture and the freedom he sees in it as a way of expression when he states “[architecture] will be capable of incorporating into its aesthetic the manipulation of volumes and voids of scultpure, and the spatial colorism of painting, in order to create one of the most complete of all of the arts, at once lyrical in its means and social in its very nature. It is in poetry that life will reside.”57 _{During his}

time in Alba, Constant notices the ruthless living circumstances of the gypsies, which inspire him to create his Design for a gypsy camp in Alba (1956) (fig. 11). This design will later be recognized to be his first New Babylon model.

When looking at Constant’s oeuvre until the late 1950s it seems to be built up of clearly distinguishable, and contrasting periods. While in 1948 he created the manifesto of the Experimental group, in which he argued for the destruction of the emptiness of the work of Mondrian and De Stijl, he later turned towards creating art that seemed to be as abstract and cold as any typical De Stijl work. Then, after this turn to abstraction, he completely abandoned painting and began to construct sculptures made out of Plexiglas and iron wire. Still, that was not exactly right for Constant, as he believed solely creating art was too individualistic. It was then that he began his search for an alternative society, constructed around manifestos, models, drawings, and ideas.

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Figure 12: Asger Jorn and Guy Debord, The Naked City. Illustration de l’hypothèse, 1957, Lithographic poster, 35 x 49 cm. Permild & Rosengreen, Copenhagen.

Figure 13: Constant, Space Circus, 1958, wire and copper, 105 x 90 x 100 cm, Gemeenteemuseum The Hague. Image by author.

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63.5 x 83.3 cm, Gemeentemuseum The Hague. Image by author.

Figure 15: Constant, Adieu la P, 1962, oil on linen, 112,5 x 145,5 cm., Collection Fondation Constant, long-term loan to the Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen. Image by

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Amsterdam. Image: Fondation Constant, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam/ Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Figure 17: Constant, New Babylon – Holland, 1963, Ink on street map, 59 x 59.9 cm, Gemeentemuseum The Hague. Image by author.

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1.3 New Babylon: Creativity as Highest Ideal

“Every human being is an artist, a freedom being, called to participate in transforming and reshaping the conditions, thinking and structures that shape and inform our

lives.”58

Long before Joseph Beuys, who in the 1970s argued that everyone ‘is an artist,’ Constant already promoted similar ideas. However, Constant believed that it was not enough to simply declare that everyone is an artist, but also, as he stated, “figure out how this creativity can be woken up (“chaqu’un est un createur qui sommeille”).”59 _This,

according to Constant, could only be achieved by social means, instead of only artistic or cultural means. While he did not explicitly refer to these changing social means, presenting New Babylon as a revolution while he was working on the project, he has indicated in retrospect that he did strongly believe in the idea of revolution when, in 1999, he indicates what was needed was “a social turnover, a revolution.”60 _Constant

began to clearly develop his ideas for such a social revolution when he met Guy Debord in 1956 during his stay in Alba.

Debord, who founded the International Lettrists and practiced as a filmmaker, author as well as activist, wanted to create a radical movement abandoning traditional arts and instead focusing fully on the study of psychogeography. Within psychogeography the boundaries between life and art have been dissolved; the movement focuses on the effects of the (constructed) geographical environment on the behaviour and emotions of individuals.61 _{In 1957 Asger Jorn and Guy Debord bind their}

forces, bringing together the Mouvement pour une Bauhaus imaginiste and the

International Lettrist, naming it the Situationist International (SI). Jorn and Debord

58 _{Joseph Beuys as cited in Caronline Tisdall, Art into Society, Society into Art (London: ICA,}

1974), 48.

59 _{Constant as cited in Benjamin Buchloch, “A Conversation with Constant, 30 October 1999” in}

Catherine de de Zegger and Mark Wigley (eds.) The Activist Drawing, Retracing Situationist Architectures from Constant’s New Babylon to Beyond (New York: The MIT Press, 2001)

60 _ibid.

61 _{Ewen Chardronnet, “The History of Unitary Urbanism and Psychogegraphy at the Turn of the}

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created maps to illustrate their ideas, publishing them together with explanining texts (fig. 12). At first Constant is reluctant to join their movement, as the SI is not a group as diverse as Constant was longing for and seemed to be more concerned with the individual goals of the artists. However, in collaboration with Debord, Constant decides to define his visions in the Declaration d’Amsterdam in 1958. They call their newly defined movement “unitary urbanism,” which they explain as “the unceasing complex activity that focuses on consciously recreating the human environment in accordance with the most progressive understandings on every level.”62 _{Constant eventually agrees}

to officially join the movement. He focuses on visualizing the ideologies of unitary urbanism by building models and constructions, drawing maps and sketches, and writing texts. Seeing the work Constant is creating, Debord refers him to Johan Huizinga’s book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. In this book, Huizinga describes a new type of man, who, instead of the Homo Faber who spends most of his time working, spends his time playing freely; naming this new type of ‘playing man’ Homo Ludens.

Huizinga explores the different qualities and elements of play in culture and civilization. He sees culture and civilization as emerging from a type of play while also

being a type of play stating, “Civilization arises in and as play, and never leaves it.”63

He emphasises that an essential characteristic of play is that is a voluntary action, a type of freedom, in the sense that it is an act that is freely engaged in and also an expression of one’s freedom. He places play outside our ordinary, daily life, in a different reality with its own borders and rules. Agreeing with Huizinga, Constant writes the following in 1966, adding his own ideas about the potential influence of automation: “Huizinga justly locates the figure of the homo ludens among the social elite, the non-working ruling class, disregarding the non-working masses. The automation, that separates

62 _{Constant and Guy Debord, “La déclaration d’Amsterdam.” Internationale situationniste 2}

(1958), 31.

63 _{Johan Huizinga Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon}