Venezuela celebrates in 2023 the centenary of the birth of Carlos Cruz-Diez and Jesus-Rafael Soto, masters of kinetic art who moved the lines of modern art. Cruz-Diez and Jesus Soto, both born in 1923 in Venezuela, were the pioneers of a current of kinetic art, exhibiting throughout the world, both in the streets and in museums, to become leading figures of “Op art” (optical art, pun with Pop art). “He (Cruz-Diez) has an invention: the metamorphosis of color. It occurs with the movement of the spectator, with ranges of colors that are not perceived if one remains static in front of the work. Once the movement begins, the metamorphosis occurs”, explained a few years ago Ravelo, disciple and friend of the master, to AFP.
A bus, imitating a tram, inaugurated Thursday in Valencia (center-north) a route passing by the works of Cruz-Diez in the city. “What better pretext than its centenary to bring citizens closer to its works, to know them a little more in depth, to relate them to the public space and also as a means of promoting the conservation of all this heritage?”, explains to AFP Eduardo Monzon, coordinator of the Mas Valencia initiative. “Master Cruz-Diez is an international reference”.
Born August 17, 1923 and raised in the La Pastora neighborhood of Caracas, Cruz-Diez fell in love with color as a child. He spoke of his transformations when the light bounced off the glass of soda bottles in the artisanal factory run by his father. He worked on this passion until the end of his days in Paris on July 27, 2019. Color is “an ephemeral situation, an autonomous reality in continuous change” and, like events, it takes place “in space and in real time, without past or future, in a perpetual present”, commented Cruz-Diez while analyzing his own work. Although he lived in Paris, like many kinetic or non-kinetic Venezuelan artists (Soto, Alejandro Otero, Oswaldo Vigas, Mario Abreu, etc.) and exhibited at the Tate Gallery, Center George Pompidou or Moma, his work is linked to his country and many of his creations are icons of Venezuelan identity.
The gigantic “Cromointerferencia de color aditivo” (Chromointerference of color additive) covers the walls and especially the floor with mosaics of color of the airport of Caracas. As a symbol, it is the last thing that emigrants who leave the country tread on or the first thing that people who arrive see. In parallel, the Museum of Fine Arts of Caracas inaugurated at the end of June a large exhibition Jesus Soto, Cosmos en estado de vibracion (Cosmos in a state of vibration), which retraces part of his career with works.
Born in 2023 in Ciudad Bolivar (center-east) where there is a museum dedicated to him, Soto died in 2005 in Paris (like Cruz-Diez). He quickly explores three-dimensionality, with works that viewers can sometimes walk through. “In the past, the viewer was like an outside witness to reality,” he said, in his words quoted by Jean Clay in Les Pénétrables de Soto on the artist’s official website. Today, we know well that man is not on one side and the world on the other”.
