The Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice is hosting the exhibition "The Invisible Chord. Hans Hartung and Music" until September 13, 2026. Curated by Thomas Schlesser and presented in collaboration with the Hartung-Bergman Foundation and Perrotin, the show features nearly eighty works, documents, and audiovisual materials exploring the profound relationship between the master of European abstraction and music. A collateral initiative of the 61st Venice Biennale, the exhibition highlights how music was a constant, obsessive presence in Hartung's life, influencing his abstract painting through rhythm, gesture, and energy rather than explicit musical imagery.
This exhibition matters because it sheds light on a less investigated aspect of Hans Hartung's practice, revealing how his intuitive, physical engagement with sound shaped his pictorial output. By restoring music to its central role in his creative universe, the show offers a fresh reading of an artist who won the Grand International Painting Prize at the 1960 Venice Biennale. It also underscores the enduring dialogue between visual art and music, a theme that resonates with contemporary audiences and positions Hartung's work within broader modernist debates about synesthesia and abstraction.