Karol Bethke and the Fine Line

The exhibition “Karol Bethke and the Fine Line”¹ , held to mark the roughly one-hundred-year anniversary of Concrete Art, is dedicated to an artist who, despite his importance, has remained in the shadow of the greater names of the genre. Karol Bethke was a German painter, draftsman and sculptor whose creative period falls in the second half of the 20th century. He thus belongs to the third generation of Concrete artists who worked in German-speaking countries. His work, which will be briefly outlined here, finally deserves to emerge from anonymity and be recognized in full.

Bethke‘s works are characterized by an intensive examination of the basic principles of Concrete Art, such as progression and folding, captivating with their unique realization in color and form. Despite his success in various artistic circles in the Federal Republic of Germany along with his presence in vibrant art scenes and an intensive creative period in New York (1980–1984), Bethke’s work has increasingly faded into oblivion. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that in the 1980s, figurative painting and representations were in greater demand than Concrete Art. This was particularly true in West Berlin, where he lived at the time. Bethke‘s retreat into the private sphere and his preoccupation with film caused his paintings and sculptures to fade into the background. In addition, progressive dementia hampered his further artistic endeavors, just when abstract geometric art was experiencing a renaissance and his works could have become the focus of attention.

Karol Bethke‘s works, which can be found in renowned art collections such as the MoMA, the Berlinische Galerie and the Neues Museum in Nuremberg, are now given a posthumous spotlight. Through the careful selection and presentation of his works, the exhibition invites visitors to embark on a journey of discovery through Bethke‘s artistic oeuvre and experience his deep affinity with the ideals of Concrete Art and complete reduction to simple geometric forms.

Miniature formats and box patterns – Karol Bethke‘s drawings

Bethke‘s works, most of which were created on paper, play a special role in Concrete Art. While the middle of the 20th century saw many artists tending to create increasingly large works, Bethke devoted himself to the small format. Despite their reduction to an almost microscopic scale, his works display clearly visible painting qualities with their luminous color character. Squared paper always served him well as a painting surface. Many representatives of Concrete Art used and still use squared and graph paper as construction support for their works, as can be seen in the work of Edgar Gutbub, for example. The grid was, as the American art critic Rosalind Krauss aptly remarked, the „emblem of modernism“. For Concrete Art, the grid may have become the most important means of design, which can be clearly seen in Bethke‘s drawings, in which he used it as a structuring pictorial element.

But there is something else that characterizes his exquisite works on paper: they are based on a meditative, sometimes manic drawing process. On closer inspection, their performative quality becomes apparent: in millimeter-thin lines, the artist layers variously colored paints on top of one another over a period of hours and days. Karol Bethke‘s artistic work process can thus be characterized as a continuous search for possibilities. His approach, which he himself describes as a manic continuation „like a diary after the first sketch“ without a predetermined program, underlines the intuitive and exploratory nature of his work, mainly manifested in his drawings. In them, he was able to freely unfold his visions, such as how 250 to 1,250 interwoven lines can be visualized. The surfaces created from ink, pencil and paint lines overlap, surround and cover each other.

Each resulting sheet is part of a conceptual sequence of several interrelated drawings. They oscillate between logic and chance, geometry and intuition. The delicate pencil codes, often added at the bottom, document the process of creating the work. At first glance, the drawings may appear to have been created quite freely, but they are in fact bound by the sum of possible variations that can be created by dividing and splitting the original forms. They also have only a fixed number of color combinations at their disposal, because Bethke had to limit himself to the colors produced by the pencil manufacturer. Despite resorting to a simple mathematical formal language and strict compositional criteria, Karol Bethke has visibly succeeded in developing an unmistakable visual language that still appears light and fresh today.

The square as a creative field

Bethke‘s „obsession with the square“ is unmistakable. The symmetrical and balanced proportions of the simple basic shape provide him with artistic reference points in form and space. In his drawings, for example, he divides the square into rectangles of different colors, thus working against the stability and unity of the figure. He sees the square as the sum of potential rectangles, which makes his compositions an exploration of the relative positions of rectangles. With skillful fragmentation and recombination, he ultimately creates countless possibilities and escapes an assumed limitation.

The square is also dominant in his sculptural works. In the floor work „o. T.“ (1990), four constructivist cubes are presented. The work was originally created as a site-specific sculptural intervention and its dimensions refer specifically to the exhibition space at the time. In the work, Bethke elaborates on the parquet floorboards found on site. He defined their dimensions of 10 x 60 centimeters as the minimum unit for his cubes. Each of the four bodies is made up of two individual parts positioned at right angles to each other, from which the fragmentary cubes are formed, and the empty spaces are unconsciously completed by the viewer. In the sparse geometric structure, he combines slightly differing parts of a skeletonized cube with strict precision. The work demands attentive perception and an understanding of the subtleties in order to recognize the slight variations within the geometric principle of order. By embedding the work in the context of the parquet floor, the artist has expanded the space to become an integral part of the artwork, opening up a new dimension of spatial perception and interaction.

Image concept equals image production

Bethke‘s reversal thesis „image concept equals image production; image production equals image concept“ emphasizes the inseparable link between the conceptual planning and the physical production of the artwork. This view asserts that the end product and the starting point are the same thing; in other words, image production and image concept converge. The creative process is thus a constant dialogue between idea and materialization. In Bethke‘s art, conception and realization combine to form an inseparable whole, with his works thus becoming a visible reflection of the act of drawing. He pursues a similar idea, albeit in a somewhat didactic way, in the group of works entitled „observe moderation“. This is a group of works in which drawings merge with sculptural elements. The ensembles manifest his artistic investigation of the relationship between two-dimensional representation and three-dimensional form. The viewer should not perceive the drawings and objects as isolated works, but rather as parts of a larger whole. The structures made of thin wood are inseparable from the corresponding drawings. At the same time, the artist emphasizes the central role of the drawing, which, for him, represents a conceptual framework from which the sculptural work unfolds.

In fact, Bethke always finds his way back to drawing. Even though he produced a large number of paintings and sculptures during his early creative phases, it is his work on paper that characterizes his oeuvre. This is expressed in drawings as well as in numerous works in which folding – often a subject of Concrete Art – is prominently featured. However, while Bethke‘s contemporaries often turned to materials such as steel, plastics or heavy textiles in large-format works, Bethke favored smaller formats. He even used tickets or simple brown drawing paper as a background for his drawings.

In this sense, the exhibition „Karol Bethke and the Fine Line“ is not only a tribute to an artist who has been unjustly forgotten, but also a well-founded reassessment of his multifaceted oeuvre in the context of Concrete Art. His works invite us to rediscover and appreciate the subtle power of drawing. In their modest format, they reveal an intensive examination of color, form and material. Through the synopsis of his works, Bethke shows himself to be a master of reduction, whose works are capable of permanently enriching the perception of art. Ultimately, however, it is an invitation to recognize Bethke‘s work as an essential contribution to Concrete Art, as his work continually opens up new perspectives on this artistic movement.