In the manner of Piet Mondrian
Dutch, 1872–1944
Metro Boogie Woogie, 2026
Oil on canvas
127 × 127 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.17.1
Moving, 8-second loop ·
Black lines divide the white canvas into rooms, and along some of them run chains of small red, yellow, blue and grey squares, the stops on a line. Here and there a big block of colour sits like a district. Mondrian arrived in New York in 1940, fell for the grid of Manhattan and put its traffic into *Broadway Boogie Woogie*. This is the same city, seen from underneath.
The brief
A grid of black and coloured lines in which the lines are made of small alternating red, yellow, blue and grey blocks like stations on a transit map, a few larger coloured rectangles. De Stijl neoplastic oil painting, a grid of black horizontal and vertical lines of varying thickness on white, rectangles filled with pure red, yellow and blue, some lines broken into small stuttering blocks of colour like lights along a route, strict flatness, hand-painted edges slightly imperfect, matte surface. Museum photograph of the oil painting, flat even lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
