From 30 January to 22 February 2004
Tambo Gallery, supported by the Embassy of Venezuela
Address: 95-97 Regent Street
London - W1B 4EW
Tel.: 020 7287 7107 - Fax.: 020 7437 5686
Email:info@tambogallery.com
Web: http://www.tambogallery.com/

CARLOS CRUZ-DIEZ: ANOTHER NOTION ABOUT COLOUR
By Luis Rebaza-Soraluz
Since 1961, Carlos Cruz-Diez (born in Venezuela, 1923) has divided his work and residence between Paris and Caracas. His artwork achieved international recognition in the mid-sixties, alongside the emergence of Op-Art and, in particular, of Kinetic Art. Due to similarities in their aesthetic principles - the exploration of sensorial perception through the effects of light, vision and movement, in participation with the spectator - it is within this latter tendency that Cruz-Diez' work can generally be situated. In recognition of his work, institutions such as the Tate Modern (which is currently exhibiting some of his works), the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art of New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris have a number of his pieces in their permanent collections. The UECLAA (University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art) recently exhibited two of his installations.



Tambo Gallery's exhibition, 'Another Notion about Colour', contains 20 pieces and includes some of Cruz-Diez' famous Physichromies, a series of changeable chromatic structures that he initiated towards the end of the fifties. The Physichromies consist of surfaces made up of coloured strips of modern materials assembled in two interspersed levels, one flat, one raised. Once the elements are assembled, the colour schemes selected by the artist are combined, producing a variable sensation of vibrating movement that modifies the original colours and causes their tones to multiply according to the position and distance of the spectator and the angle at which the light- natural or artificial- of the environment is reflected. In addition to the Physichromies, the exhibition 'Another Notion about Colour' also includes works from his series of Chromointerferences and Additive Colours, as well as some pieces than can be manipulated and an installation involving the creation of an environment.

Cruz-Diez' works are the product of an extensive practical and theoretical investigation focussing on perception. They invite the spectators to experience colour as an entity almost entirely separate from the artwork from which it radiates. In order to achieve this, the artist intensifies the perception of colour by isolating a seemingly infinite series of brief and unique, almost imperceptible, experiences provoked by strips of colour 'slicing' through what appears to be a larger single-colour surface. The movements of the spectator and the changes in illumination trigger a chain of optical effects that produce virtual vibrations. Although the perception of movement is an important part of Cruz-Diez' work, it is not its most essential aspect. As Victor Guedez, one of his critics, has pointed out, this artist's work 'invite us to perceive perception, to think about what is perceived.'

Other critics have also observed in Cruz-Diez' work a curious oscillation between the ephemeral nature of instantaneous perception and the monumental nature of collective perception. The artist's interest in the participation and the perceptual reflection of the spectator has led him to carry out international projects involving the creation of environments and the integration of art and architecture in public spaces such as the Rey Juan Carlos Park in Madrid and the Olympic Park in Seoul, as well as in buildings such as the headquarters of the Union of Swiss Banks in Zurich. His investigation into cutting edge materials and technology has allowed him to produce surprising environments with the support of multimedia.
Luis Rebaza-Soraluz
Senior Lecturer in Latin American Arts
King's College London

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