WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF CARLOS CRUZ-DIEZ AND HIS WORK, LUMINOUS REALITY, PHILLIPS PRESENTS PHILLIPS X, THE NEW EXHIBITION PLATFORM

Taking advantage overe the new platform, the show will focus on demonstrating the exploratory and experimental nature of  Cruz-Diez work, who consolidated himself as one of the most innovative artists along the XX and XXI centuries in relation to Op-art. Miety Heiden, Deputy Chairman and Head of Private Sales, and Kaeli Deane, Head of Latin American Art, said, “The works highlighted in this exhibition illustrate the artistic achievements of Carlos Cruz-Diez. A visionary and trailblazer at the forefront of kinetic art since the 1950s, Cruz-Diez has dedicated his career to an intense investigation of colour theory and the importance of viewer participation in art.  This unprecedented exhibition in London will include examples from the artist’s most important series, such as his renowned Physichromies as well as a Chromointerferent Environment, a fully immersive installation that embodies Cruz-Diez’s experiments with light.  The combination of previously unseen recent works and historic works demonstrating various periods of his career throughout the last century culminate in a broad and rounded exploration of Cruz-Diez’s artistic evolution. We look forward to sharing them with both new and longstanding admirers of his work.”

Following Carlos Cruz-Diez’s tour of Europe he returned to Venezuela and opened a studio where he began to experiment with kinetic and optical forms of art. In 1956 he held his first private exhibition in Madrid, and in 1959 he began work on his early series of Physichromies. Created using strips of cardboard, aluminium, and Plexiglas arranged on different levels so as to give the impression of vibrating colour, these chromatic structures exemplify this pivotal period within the artist’s oeuvre.  In 1960, Cruz-Diez settled permanently in Paris, where he set up his own studio and gallery which remains there to this day. In Paris his reputation rapidly grew, leading to exhibitions in Europe, South America and the United States. Cruz-Diez works in series which often span decades, illustrating his train of artistic development and exploring in depth his chosen themes. One such seriesof structures is highlighted among the works in this exhibition, Induction Chromatique. This work develops the idea of the ‘after image’ or ‘retinal persistence’, the theory that an image continues to appear in one’s vision after exposure to the subject. A recent work from another seminal series titled Environement Chromointereferent features a changing, three-dimensional chromatic environment activated by the movement of the spectators as they enter the space.