Galleries, Basel
Group Exhibition
Signals
Galerie MuellerAl Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Hansjörg Mattmüller, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Georg Karl Pfahler, John Plumb, William Turnbull "Two considerations and notions stood at the inception of this show, one positive and one negative. The positive: awareness of the work of some painters, the exhibitionary presentation of which practically imposed itself upon me. The negative: a certain helplessness in the face of the artificially overstimulated art world, the hectic coasting in neutral and the organized hubbub. Perhaps – like the artists exhibited here – I also felt aneed for order and a clarification of perspectives." —Arnold Rüdlinger, opening speech Signale (1965), Kunsthalle Basel The exhibition Signale was dedicated to painting that has sometimes been canonized as "hard edged" – that is,mainly large-format, geometric painting. It paired works by Kenneth Noland, Al Held, Jules Olitski, and Ellsworth Kelly with paintings by lesser-known European artists such as Hansjörg Mattmüller, Georg Karl Pfahler, John Plumb, and William Turnbull. This was a strategy that Harald Szeemann, Rüdlinger's protegé and later successor in Bern, often used too. In 2025, 60 years after this important exhibition, Galerie Mueller is out on a search for clues. The exibition with the English title Signals combines works by the Swiss Theodor Bally and Luigi Lurati, the German Georg Karl Pfahler and the three Americans Al Held, Kenneth Noland and JulesOlitski. Galerie Mueller is thus expanding its research into the transatlantic dialog in post-war art.