The nature of Arp

"Over a career spanning more than six decades, Jean (Hans) Arp (1886-1966) produced a remarkably influential body of work in a rich variety of materials and formats, creating drawings, prints, books, textiles, collages, painted reliefs, and sculptures. Disillusioned by the destructiveness of World War I, Arp sought creative strategies analogous to processes found in nature, such as growth, gravity, decay, and chance. A founder of the Dada movement and a pioneer of abstraction, he developed a vocabulary of curving, organic forms that moved fluidly between abstraction and representation and became a common point of reference for several generations of artists. Born in the politically fraught region of Alsace, between France, Germany, and Switzerland, Arp responded to the crises of the early twentieth century with an adamant rejection of nationalism and militarism, along with a pioneering exploration of practices now common in today's global art world. Switching easily between Alsatian dialect, French, and German (signaled by the dual Jean/Hans of his name), Arp deftly negotated boundaries between cultures, movements, and mediums, at ease being identified as a Dadaist, a Surrealist, o