Last Monday, the walls of Collegium Da Vinci hosted Anda Rottenberg, a well-known art curator, critic and art historian.
During her lecture “From where did abstraction come?”, the guest speaker took us on a fascinating journey through the intricate meanders of 20th century art history. Her reflections and analysis shed new light on the concept of abstraction, emphasizing that it cannot be put into a clear-cut framework.
Anda Rottenberg began her lecture with the context of modernism, an art movement that transformed art in the early 20th century. Modernism, with its drive to break with tradition and seek new forms of expression, became fertile ground for the birth of abstraction.
As Anda Rottenberg noted, abstraction was not a sudden, revolutionary invention, but the result of a gradual evolution of artistic thought.
Anda Rottenberg pointed out the multiplicity of sources from which abstraction originated. She noted that it is impossible to speak of a single formula for abstraction, since each artist brought something unique to it.
Rottenberg analyzed in detail the development of abstraction in 20th century art, showing how diverse forms it took at different historical moments. She highlighted Abstract Expressionism, which emerged in the 1940s in the United States, where artists experimented with automatism techniques and colored planes to express emotions and inner states.
One of the most important aspects of Anda Rottenberg’s lecture was her attempt to define abstraction not only as an artistic style, but as a certain way of thinking and perceiving the world. Rottenberg emphasized that abstraction is not just a technique or formal experiment, but can also be a philosophical attitude toward reality.
Thanks to Anda Rottenberg’s lecture, participants had the opportunity to look at abstraction from different perspectives and appreciate its richness and diversity. Her reflections remind us that abstract art, like any other art form, is a living dialogue between artist and viewer, and its interpretation depends on our own experiences and perceptions.