JULIO LE PARC, THE MAN FROM MENDOZA WHO TURNED LIGHT INTO A WORK OF ART, HAS PASSED AWAY

Julio Le Parc (Palmira, Argentina, 1928 – Paris, France, 2026) died this Saturday in Paris. He had been admitted to the American Hospital of Paris two days prior, succumbing to a progressive decline in health that in recent years had prevented him from traveling as he once did. His son Yamil, who today manages his father's studio, confirmed the news. "He fought until the end — he was so excited" about the show that the Tate in London was set to open on June 11, he said.

The son of a railway worker, Le Parc was born on September 23, 1928, in Mendoza, and began working at the age of 13, delivering newspapers and fixing bicycles. He studied fine arts at night while working days in factories and bookshops. He worked as a doorman at the Teatro Colón. He took part in the student movement that in 1955 occupied the three fine arts schools in Buenos Aires, ousted their directors, and reformed the curricula. In 1958 he received a grant from the French Cultural Service, and on November 4 he arrived in Paris. He never lived in Argentina again.

From the French capital, he built one of the most coherent and combative careers in twentieth-century art. In 1960 he founded the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV), a collective that from its very first founding declaration declared war on the art system: against the mythification of the artist, against the artwork as an object of worship, and in favor of the spectator as an active participant. "We wanted to challenge the art system," he said. In 1966, that challenge received its greatest recognition when he won the Grand Prix International de Peinture at the Biennale di Venezia. That same year, GRAV staged Un jour dans la rue in the streets of Paris, a collective experience that began at 8 in the morning and ended at midnight despite police intervention. The following year, French Culture Minister André Malraux awarded him the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

He never stopped moving, in every sense. In 1968 he was expelled from France during the events of May '68 and traveled through Europe for five months until pressure from the cultural community succeeded in having the measure lifted. He visited Cuba several times and traveled tirelessly across Latin America; he declined invitations to exhibitions he considered opportunistic, donated part of a cash prize to the Nicaraguan people, organized collective solidarity murals, founded artists' unions, and participated in antifascist brigades. Art and politics, for him, were not separate worlds.

But it was light that made him immortal. From his first light boxes of 1960, through his "Modulaciones" of the 1970s and his "Alquimias" of the 1980s, Le Parc built a universe in which movement, color, and light combined to transform the viewer's experience. His spheres — red, blue, yellow, golden — ended up suspended in Mendoza, at the CCK, at the MALBA, at Ezeiza airport, at the Hirshhorn in Washington, at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and at the Serpentine Gallery in London. In 2014, France awarded him the Légion d'honneur.

This is how MALBA bid him farewell: "His work expanded the boundaries of artistic experience and left a profound mark on generations of artists and audiences around the world."