The painting in question, New York City I, was first exhibited at the MoMA in New York in 1945 and then transferred to Germany in 1980 at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K20 in Düsseldorf, a museum which hosted the retrospective Mondrian. Evolution.
During the research carried out by the curator to plan the exhibition, a photograph emerged, taken in the artist’s studio shortly after his disappearance, in this image the work appears resting on an easel in an “upside down” position compared to how it has always been placed on show. To corroborate the thesis, adds the curator, there is the interpretation of the composition of the lines: there is a greater concentration of colored ribbons in the lower part of the canvas which, if observed above-below, should instead represent a «dark sky» .
Corrado Bonomi’s interpretation of the question was not long in coming: contemporary art, for better or for worse, often confronts us with questions such as «What is it?» “What does it represent?” “Why?”. Piet Mondrian in canvases like this has brought Neoplasticism to its maximum expression, using only simple colored lines to represent the American city. But the strength of this language is also the freedom it offers to the observer: instead of getting stuck in social constructs that push us to look for recognizable shapes, colors or compositions, we are free to wander with the imagination and, therefore, Bonomi says:
And it is from this reflection that the work Così è se vi pare – Also ist es wie du wilst was born, a very faithful reproduction in scale and colors of the chatty work by Mondrian with a particular addition: the work rotates on itself, putting thus ending the discussion on what could be the right direction for its posting.
