Tribute to the masters. Centenary of Jesus Rafael Soto & Carlos Cruz-Diez

This year Venezuela commemorates the Centenary of the birth of two great masters of kinetic art, Jesus Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez. On this occasion, Espace Meyer Zafra, a gallery defending the geometric abstraction of Venezuela for more than 20 years, is pleased to present a collective exhibition entitled Tribute to the Masters. Historical works by Carlos Cruz-Diez and Jesus Rafael Soto will be featured, as well as works by artists with obvious visual links, such as Yaacov Agam, Francisco Salazar, Manuel Mérida, Piotr Kowalski and Armando Reveron.

 

“Take an element, a line, a bit of wood or metal, and transform it into pure light”: through these words coming from Jesus Rafael Soto, lies the understanding of his artistic conception. Whether in the work presented here: Vibration Coquilles produced in 1996 or in the two Ambivalences Carré Noir from 1991 and Verde y Tabacco from 1994, we find these elements generating disconcerting illusions. The work first mentioned is composed of a pink rectangle in the upper part and a frame in the lower part on top of which  suspended metal rods are juxtaposed. Depending on the viewer’s motion, these rods disappear and reappear, giving a particular vibratory aspect to the piece. The other two works are part of the Ambivalences series. Influenced by Piet Mondrian, this series generate an illusion of space. The squares embossed to the piece, move forward or
backward depending on the viewer’s motion.

Two works by Carlos Cruz-Diez will be presented in this tribute exhibition. The first is a Physichromie. Invented in 1959, the principle of this series consists of revealing certain circumstances and conditions of color. As the Cruz-Diez studio indicates, Physichromie
acts like a “light trap” in a space where a series of color frames interact and transform when in contact with each other, generating new chromatic ranges, not present on the support. The Physichromie 2567 that will be presented is divided vertically into three
strips covered with PVC, generating a monochrome rendering of blue on one of the profiles and an orange one on the other side. The second work exhibited is a multiple published by the Galerie Denise René in 1968. The multiples were innovative at that time when kinetic art was booming. The Chromointerference Series C is a motorized work in which a first circular frame moves like a pendulum in front of another frame with the same chromatic nuances, causing a disturbance in the viewer’s vision. 

 

Yaacov Agam was already a figure on the Paris market when he met Jesus Soto whom he introduced to the Galerie Denise René which generated strong bonds between them. Like any artistic movement of the 20th century, artists coexisted together and were inspired by each other’s work. The two works presented in this exhibition show this strong interest in having the spectator participate. As in the work of Carlos Cruz-Diez, the visitor moves in front of the work in order to discover another. If in the work of his Venezuelan contemporary, it is only the color that changes, in Yaacov Agam’s work, the form is

transformed by reaching a fourth dimension. Whether in the work entitled Metzulot (Seabed), an oil painting on aluminum, or in the work Espoir, an oil on silk, the image that is seen at first glance is completely transformed as desired depending on the movement.

The work of Francisco Salazar joins this homage in research on light. In the work Dématerialisation created in 1975, each space is made up of tiny variations in light values, spaces where the light constantly changes. His work is punctuated by positive and negative atmospheres activating the roughness of the support itself which is corrugated
cardboard. In addition, through work carried out on this cardboard, Salazar adds dimension thus contributing to generating more light phenomena thanks to the interaction between the shadows.

 

Born in 1937 in Venezuela, Manuel Mérida is one of the second generation kinetic artists. Through his work in the Parisian workshop of Carlos Cruz-Diez, Mérida learned the elementary principles of kinetics. Less strict than his masters, Mérida added a materialist aspect to this artistic movement. Through the use of various materials (pigments, sand, ash, debris, metal particles, painted wood) within his mobile circles, Mérida places odds at the center of his work. He uses this potential to create a work in perpetual transformation.

 

Just like Yaacov Agam, Piotr Kowalski comes from another part of the world, but he fits well into this movement. Close to Venezuelans and notably Manuel Merida, he participated alongside Cruz-Diez, Soto and Agam in the largest kinetic presentations (Lumière et Mouvement, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1967 / Dynamo, Grand Palais, Paris
, 2013). Like the works of the artists mentioned above, without the participation of the spectator, the work of Piotr Kowalski has no reason to exist. Perspective neon has in common with kinetic art the abandonment of the notion of traditional painting and sculpture. In 1973, while he was working on words of light, Kowalski represented here the word Perspective, inscribed in a perspective outline - the letters growing larger as the word was written. The work aims to criticize this classic perception, central in Western thought.

 

Exceptionally, on the occasion of this exhibition, we have chosen to present a historic work by Armando Reveron, a Latin American artist considered one of the most important of the 20th century. The artist’s white period will undoubtedly have marked kinetic artists in their reflections on light and vibration (more particularly Francisco Salazar as demonstrated by Sebastian Sarmiento). The landscape entitled El Tamarindo, belonging to his sepia period, depicts a light giving a particularly abstract aspect to the work.

 

In this tribute paid to the masters on the occasion of their Centenary, the exhibition tends to show the importance of the luminous phenomenon in kinetic art, because any modification of light alters the established relationships in such a subtle way, that a single painting is converted into a chain of visual events.