JULIO LE PARC

Julio Le Parc’s main poetic interest is the study of movement, which has been explored throughout his career in the most diverse ways: through paintings, experiments with mirrors and other reflective surfaces, installations, motors, and even more daring installations, such as his presentation at the 1966 Venice Biennale, in which, in order to include the viewer, he transformed the installation into an amusement park. In recent years, however, the artist has dedicated himself to the Alchimies series. In this series of works, produced since the 1980s, the artist focuses on the study of colour, its different palettes, and the results obtained from the interaction between them. His palette consists of 14 shades, which he has been using since 1959, and range from warmer tones, such as red and orange, to colder ones, such as blue and purple. However, in Alchemies, the colours are reduced to small fragments, as if they were particles, grouped and organised in different ways. Seen from afar, the viewer has the sensation of being in front of chromatic clouds that vibrate as the shades rub against each other, but up close, the particles of color present in the compositions become visible.

Another pictorial series in the exhibition is Ondes, in which Le Parc places bands of colour side-by-side ranging from warmer tones, such as red, orange, and yellow, to colder ones, such as blue and purple. Through sinuous schemes, the interspersed colours create a dynamic surface. Complementing the set of paintings, the exhibition also brings together a series of studies on paper that the artist made of these pictorial series, especially the Alchimies, through which the artist’s creative and experimental process becomes visible.

The exhibition includes some of Julio Le Parc’s recent three-dimensional creations, such as a large mobile. Although mobiles have been recurring elements throughout his career, in this piece, the artist experiments with the same chromatic transition seen in the Alchimies and Ondes series. The selection also includes two pieces from Le Parc’s historical Continuel Lumière series, projected in 1960, the luminous structures containing acrylic plates coloured with geometric patterns. Once lit, the light interacts directly with the chromatic plates, creating a vertical and ascending luminous effect.