Denise Rene Gallery Celebrates Half a Century of Cruz-Diez´s Creation in Paris

Carlos Cruz-Diez arrived in Paris in 1960 and found himself in a country that had gone through critical political, social and economic changes in the years following World War II. Nonetheless, it was the perfect place for exploring his artistic concerns, both conceptually and technologically. Artists from all over the world met in Paris to question the limits between art and everyday life. Many of them, working in the constructivist tradition, found support at Denise René Gallery, which, since 1944, had been rescuing the pre-war style that explored utopic potentials of geometric abstraction.

Cruz-Diez brought with him years of investigation around color and vision, technical skills that would allow him to explore non-traditional media, an avid creative spirit, interest in the urban environment, and a belief in the social commitment of art. Over the years he built a discourse to communicate his central message of color’s instability and materiality, and he developed a vast body of work that found representation at the Marais space of the Denise René Gallery.

After all these years, the artist definitely knows how to surprise his audience. The show opens to Environnement Chromointerférent (1964-2010), a room that becomes unstable via moving lines of colored light that meet at its center. By the time visitors walk to the next room, they notice that the disturbing effect is not only valid in and on the space, but that all forms present in the room, including themselves, lose their assumed formal definition and become moving volumes even when not moving at all.

The following rooms are a celebration of color, presenting other forms the artist has articulated to communicate the instability of color interaction and perception. Recent versions of his Physichromies, Transchromies, and Couleur Additives confirm Cruz-Diez’s mastery of color, making shapes and new colors appear and disappear right in front of viewers’ eyes, even as they know that colored lines exist only on the surface. A section of the exhibition shows historical works dating from the early fifties, and available documents remind us of Cruz-Diez’s interest in art beyond medium and his ways of integrating art and architecture, urbanism, graphic design . . . life.

Cruz-Diez: Circonstance et ambigüité de la couleur is a revision of the artist’s achievements during 50 years living and working in Paris. And it is a celebration of the years to come for an artist who cannot stop creating. In February 2011, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston will contribute to the knowledge of this artist’s ouvre with a vast retrospective that will be open to the public until January 29, 2011.