Molnar studied art history and aesthetics at the Budapest College of Fine Arts before moving to Paris in 1947 meeting Constructivist artists such as Jesus Rafael Soto and Victor Vasarely, who shared an interest in exploring compositions based on simple geometric shapes and themes.
Molnar is widely considered to be a pioneer of computer art and generative art, and is also one of the first women to use computers in her art practice. In the 1940s and 50s, she created non-representational paintings. By 1959 she was making combinatorial images; in 1968 she would use a computer to create her first algorithmic drawings. She was co-founder of GRAV (Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel) in 1960. Along side Julio le Parc and Francois Morellet, they investigated collaborative approaches to mechanical and kinetic art. Molnar was always fixated on geometric forms and creating system-based art. ‘My life is squares, triangles, lines. I am mad...about lines.’
Pre-dating the computer, she invented algorithms or “machine imaginaire” that created images by following a set of pre-ordained compositional rules creating colorful abstract geometric works. Her breakthrough came in 1968 when she gained access to a computer at a research lab after teaching herself the early programming language of Fortran and could now program endless variations of algorithms through a machine. Through a laborious process, Molnar, using a language of 0s and 1s, fed the commands into the computer on punched cards or paper tape which were then outputted to a plotter which conveyed the image directly to paper via a moving pen or pencil. This method allowed her to investigate endless variations in geometric shape and line.
For her computer works, Molnar participated in the now legendary exhibitions Konkrete Kunst, Zurich, 1960, mounted by Max Bill and Cybernetic Serendipity at the ICA, London, 1968. Recent exhibitions include; MOMA New York, Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959–1989, Artistes & Robots at the Grand-Palais, Paris and Chance and Control: Art in the Age of Computers at the Victoria & Albert Museum; all in 2018.
Entrada actualizada el el 08 mar de 2022
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