Genèse d’un Carré Magique (Genesis of a Magic Square)

Basic Information

Title: Genèse d’un Carré Magique (Genesis of a Magic Square)
Artist(s): Vera Molnar
Date Created: 2015
Edition Info: 10/12
Unframed Dimensions: 13 x 78.75 in.
Medium: serigraph on anodized aluminum
Inventory ID: Molnar-2015-03

Description

signed on the reverse in ink

“An engraving dated 1514 by Dürer: “Melancholy”, gives a representation of the magic square that Vera Molnar discovered in her youth. Composed of numbers from 1 to 16 arranged in 4 rows and 4 columns, the particularity of the magic square is that the sum of the rows, columns and diagonals always results in: 34.

Since then, the artist has never ceased in his artistic practice to question this mysterious object, to play with it. She thus tries to reveal the innumerable surprises that it reserves for those who seek to unravel its mystery.

Genesis of the magic square is a tribute to Dürer, 500 years after the publication of his engraving. The 16 numbers are linked together in a precise sequence, each step linking a number to its next: the first to the second, then the first to the second and to the third, etc. until the connection from the first to the sixteenth.

In this sequence, the artist brings two variants: at each stage, the drawing that is born is shifted by 45° and the lines of the drawing gradually become thinner.

The magic square has not finished revealing its mysteries!”
– Bernard Chauveau Gallery