Hionas Gallery is proud to announce that for the launch of its 2012 fall season, the gallery has partnered with celebrated Swedish-born abstractionist Siri Berg to stage a redux of the artist’s momentous solo show, Black & White 1976-1981, which originally exhibited at the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia, March 6 – May 31, 1986.

Known primarily as a master colorist, Berg’s 1986 Black & White represented a major departure from her oeuvre. In this series of monochrome black and white paintings and assemblage, the artist abandons pure color in place of pure shade, resulting in one of the twentieth-century’s most stunning collections of minimalist and geometric abstraction.

This body of work contains an exquisite simplicity by exploring the subtlest of relationships between light and space. Most of the works are either acrylic on canvas or masonite, but also incorporate various non-art and found industrial objects like miniature suction cups and, in the case of Berg’s oversized piece Big Bang (1981), the exhaust hose from a clothing dryer. The influence of the Bauhaus is unmistakable throughout Berg’s art, both aesthetically and philosophically, recalling the words of Josef Albers who stressed that the ultimate goal of art is simply “to open eyes.”

Twelve vintage works from Black & White 1976-1981 were carefully selected by Berg and gallery owner Peter Hionas for Redux 2012, including two studies of Four Elements (1979), a work that was acquired by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum not long after Berg’s 1986 show at the American Swedish Historical Museum.

Siri Berg was born in 1921 in Stockholm, Sweden. She received her BA from the Institute of Art and Architecture at the University of Brussels. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally for over 30 years in such countries as Australia, China, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Spain and Germany, and across the United States. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Southwest State University Art Museum, Minnesota; Cornell University’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca, NY; and the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm. Most recently, Berg exhibited at Concrete, the American Abstract Artists International 75th Anniversary exhibition in Paris, and Siri Berg: It’s All About Color at the Painting Center in New York City. She is a long-time member of the American Abstract Artists and has taught Color Theory at Parsons, The New School for Design for over 30 years.