Ulla von Brandenburg: In Dialogue is a presentation of von Brandenburg’s work paired with The Bass’s recently acquired ceramic mural by the Lebanese-American artist Etel Adnan (1925–2021). A leading figure in contemporary Arab American visual art and literature, Adnan created rich, geometric fields of color in her paintings and drawings, some translated into large-scale murals and tapestries that reflect the artist’s enduring interest in architecture and the built environment. Comparatively, von Brandenburg’s multifaceted practice combines film, textiles, drawings, watercolors and sound into immersive exhibition scenarios where the different art forms harmonize into a cohesive whole (or Gesamtkunstwerk).

The exhibition explores this cross-generational engagement with geometric abstraction – its interplay of circles, squares and triangles – evident in both Adnan’s mural and von Brandenburg’s practice, and staged alongside the rich history of the Ukrainian-born French artist Sonia Delaunay. Here, Adnan’s lyrical abstract mural (Untitled, 2023), at 14 × 21 feet, serves as both a protagonist and theatrical backdrop in von Brandenburg’s exhibition scenography. The works interweave through the language of abstraction and the artists’ shared interests in the social and spatial environment.