Sophie Taeuber-Arp : la règle des courbes / The rule of curves

Exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Paris, 17 January – 7 March 2026

The innovative and multifaceted work of Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943), a major artist of the 20th century, challenged traditional hierarchies and conventional binary oppositions, while affirming the urgent relevance of art in everyday life. The artist's training in the applied arts, with a focus on textiles rather than painting and sculpture, enabled her to reconcile her multiple interests and combine them with other visual and cultural forms in vogue at the time. She merged the languages of decoration and technology, as well as those of Dadaism and Constructivism, ignoring the stricter protocols established by others. The result was a body of work that was both playful and speculative, where curves and circles offered an alternative measure for calibrating the space between the work and the world.

This exhibition catalogue focuses on the formal logic that guided his bold and varied creative output, revealing how his transition from one medium to another simultaneously broadened and crystallised his aesthetic. It brings together 45 works – paintings, drawings, gouaches, wooden reliefs and a Dadaist head – produced between 1916 and 1942, drawing attention to the artist's formal vocabulary, centred on the curve, which she used innovatively to stretch, bend and distort the language of geometric abstraction.