For many years, the artist Kurt Kranz explored the foundations of visual design – colour, form and structure – through consistently new and quasi-scientific processes. In doing so, he drew on theories of geometry, colour and cognitive psychology. During his studies at the Bauhaus, Kranz was inspired in important ways by his teachers Josef Albers, Walter Peterhans, Joost Schmidt, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. His research into the foundations of visual art led Kranz to develop design principles that, in the strict sense of the Bauhaus program, he implemented in the fields of both free and applied art, including painting, drawing, typography, graphic design, exhibition design, book design and film.
The works selected for this publication are representative of individual groups of works, each of which is based on a different generative technique. “I look for rules, principles, methods or processes that generate change by visual means and lead to a consistent process that is governed by intuition” (Kurt Kranz). Although the developments occur within a certain framework, there are often phases where the visual experiment develops its own dynamic and Kurt Kranz gives his artistic intuition free reign.
Edited by Christian Hiller, Stephan Müller, Philipp Oswalt.