Mondrian painting hangs upside down for 75 years, curator says

Misty Severi

October 28, 06:17 PM October 28, 06:17 PM

An art piece by Dutch geometric and abstract painter Piet Mondrian has been hanging upside down for 75 years, according to a curator and art historian in Dusseldorf, Germany.

The artwork, an intricate interlacing lattice of red, black, yellow, and blue adhesive tapes called New York City I, hangs with the taped lines thickening at the bottom, which are supposed to be at the top and represent a simplified version of a skyline, curator Susanne Meyer-Buser said.

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“The thickening of the grid should be at the top, like a dark sky,” Meyer-Buser told the Guardian. “Once I pointed it out to the other curators, we realized it was very obvious. I am 100% certain the picture is the wrong way around.”

A photograph of Mondrian’s studio that was published in the magazine Town and Country in June of 1944, shows the picture sitting the right way up on an easel. A similar painting called New York City by Mondrian that currently hangs in France also hangs with the thickening of the grid at the top, adding to the theory that the painting has been hanging upside down since it was first displayed at New York City's Museum of Modern Art in 1945.

“Was it a mistake when someone removed the work from its box? Was someone being sloppy when the work was in transit?” Meyer-Buser asked. “It’s impossible to say.”

Fixing the problem, however, is not possible, according to the curator, because it could ruin the artwork because of the wear and tear on the painting.

“The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread,” Meyer-Büser said. “If you were to turn it upside down now, gravity would pull it into another direction. And it’s now part of the work’s story.”

The painting has been displayed in the art collection of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Dusseldorf since 1980 and will be a central part of a new exhibit that opens over the weekend. Mondrian is considered one of the greatest modern artists of the 20th century and is known for his contributions to modernism, minimalism, expressionism, and abstract styles. He has also dabbled in cubism.