Buffalo AKG Show Connects Electronic Art’s Origins to Op Art

Victor Vasarely 1906-1997 Follow +

Buffalo AKG Art Museum has announced the theme of its next special exhibition.

Electric Op (27 September 2024–27 January 2025) will illuminate the ways op art—which uses geometric forms to confuse the eye—informed the origins of electronic art.

In a statement, the museum quotes critic John Canaday, who said in 1965 that op artworks are ‘the only objects being created today, as art, that can compete with launching pads and industrial machinery as expressions of the character unique to our civilisation.’

The exhibition will include over 100 works by op art giants including Bridget Riley, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and Victor Vasarely.

Featured artists working in electronic media include Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, recently deceased video art pioneer Bill Viola, and ingenious video-game-inspired artist Cory Arcangel, who told Ocula his work is ‘defined by a kinda existential stupidity.’

The exhibition is curated by the museum’s Tina Rivers Ryan, who in April was named Editor in Chief of Artforum. In an Instagram story she described the show as her swan song at the museum.

Ryan is currently working on a book titled McLuhan’s Bulbs: Light Art and the Dawn of New Media that examines light art made during the 1960s.

From April 4 2025, Electric Op will show at France’s Musée d’arts de Nantes, who are co-organisers of the exhibition. —[O]

Main image: Rafaël Rozendaal, Abstract Browsing (2014). Chrome browser extension shown on interactive computer. Courtesy © Rafaël Rozendaal. Photo: Rafaël Rozendaal.