Among the neo-Constructivists in the “Geometria Nova” show at the Kunstverein Munich last spring—the Swiss artists Helmut Federle and John M. Armleder, the American Matt Mullican, and the Austrian Gerwald Rockenschaub—Federle, the oldest of the quartet, is closest to the spirit of geometric abstraction. Federle’s art is based less on the concrete rationalist branch of the Zurich School than on Suprematism, whose visual tension is built on the interaction of constructivist imagery and emotional content. Through this respectful proximity and emotional earnestness Federle’s work differs from

It does make a certain amount of sense that one should give credit to exhibitions that present work of no exemplary value, but that articulate un certainties in doing so—which is to say, they do have merit as accurate assessments of the range of work being done. Shows such as these neither take us by surprise esthetically nor overwhelm us with significant new developments. Nevertheless, their categorizing schemes are necessarily jostled, and more openness than compact closure results-and that is worth something, too.

What this gallery presented under the title “Raum annehmen: Aspekte österreichischer