NEW YORK, NY.- The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930, the first in-depth examination of Orphism, which emerged in Paris among a cosmopolitan group of artists in the early 1910s—when changes brought on by modernity were radically altering notions of time and space. Open from November 8, 2024, to March 9, 2025, the presentation features over 80 artworks comprising painting, sculpture, works on paper, and ephemera, installed across five levels of the museum’s spiral rotunda.

The poet Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term “Orphism” in 1912 to describe artists who were moving away from Cubism, toward an abstract, multisensory mode of expression. Apollinaire’s concept referenced the Greek mythological poet and lyre player Orpheus¾who swayed nature and challenged death with his song—equating the ephemeral abstraction of music with Orphism’s transcendent character.

Associated artists such as Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, František Kupka, and Francis Picabia created kaleidoscopic compositions that captured the simultaneity of modern life. Some investigated chromatic consonances and contrasts in their prismatic works, while others engaged with the rhythms and syncopations of popular music and dance. They drew inspiration from Neo-Impressionism’s color theory and the Blue Rider group’s philosophies. When pushed to its limits, Orphism meant total abstraction.

Alongside the formal harmony and dissonance related to color and sound that underpins Orphist compositions, the exhibition reveals sociocultural corollaries sparked by transnationalism, or the connections that greater mobility fostered between artists from myriad countries who converged in Paris as well as the tensions that geographic and cultural dislocations could engender.

Harmony and Dissonance employs Orphism as a generous and elastic category to embrace a range of artists experimenting with abstraction in the early twentieth century. Thus, selected works by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, Albert Gleizes, Mainie Jellett, Fernand Léger, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Morgan Russell, and others are among those in the presentation. Around a quarter of the exhibition’s works hail from the Guggenheim’s collection, the very body of art that Frank Lloyd Wright designed the museum to house, aptly honoring the building’s 65th anniversary in fall 2024.

Harmony and Dissonance is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue that, in tandem with the exhibition, situates Orphism historically, traces its roots, and addresses its multidisciplinary reach. Edited by Vivien Greene, the fully illustrated publication features essays by an international roster of established and emerging scholars from multiple fields including art history, dance, history, literature, and musicology—namely Nell Andrew, Tracey Bashkoff, Gurminder K. Bhogal, Elizabeth Everton, David Max Horowitz, and Effie Rentzou—as well as concise texts that consider specific artists through the Orphist lens contributed by Matthew Affron, Masha Chlenova, Riann Coulter, Joana Cunha Leal, Megan Fontanella, Caitlin Glosser, Bellara Huang, Michael Leja, Anna Liesching, Chitra Ramalingam, and Rachel Silveri.

The conservation of Robert Delaunay’s Eiffel Tower (1911; inscribed 1910) is another example of the commendable scholarly research conducted around this exhibition. The cleaning of this work by the Guggenheim Museum’s conservation team, along with František Kupka’s Divertimento I (1935), has restored the paintings’ subtle yet important color shifts, depth, and sense of movement.

Additionally, the museum is conducting a carbon emission study on Harmony and Dissonance, in accordance with the institution’s commitments to quantify its environmental impact, establish benchmarks and baselines, and ultimately reduce its carbon footprint.

Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930 is organized by Tracey Bashkoff, Senior Director of Collections and Senior Curator, and Vivien Greene, Senior Curator, 19th- and Early 20th-Century Art, with the support of Bellara Huang, Curatorial Assistant, Exhibitions.