Carlos Cruz-Diez (b. 1923, Venezuela — d. 2019, France)
Couleur additive permutable prismat, 2017

About the work

Couleur additive permutable prismat

2017

« All my works show color as a circumstance in space and time, constantly changing depending on several elements such as the surrounding light, the distance or the viewing angle of the spectator. This Table.Video with permutable colors brings into play 20 harmonies that gradually show up in time, displaying a continuous chromatic spectacle. » Carlos Cruz-Diez

« Toutes mes œuvres manifestent la couleur comme une circonstance dans l’espace et le temps, changeant de façon continue dépendant de plusieurs facteurs comme la lumière environnante, la distance ou l’angle de vision du spectateur. Cette table vidéo de couleurs permutables, met en jeu 20 harmonies qui surgissent graduellement dans le temps, créant ainsi un spectacle chromatique continu. » Carlos Cruz-Diez

Watch the entire video

Duration: 02:16

Carlos Cruz-Diez

Born in 1923, Caracas, Venezuela
Died in 2019, Paris, France

French-Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (Caracas, 1923 - Paris, 2019) lived and worked in Paris since 1960. A major protagonist in the field of Kinetic and Optical Art, a movement that encourages “an awareness of the instability of reality”*, his body of work established him as one of the key 20th-century thinkers in the realm of color.

Carlos Cruz-Diez’s visual art explores the perception of color as an autonomous reality evolving in space and time, unaided by form or support, in a perpetual present.

His artworks are housed in prestigious permanent collections at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York ; Tate Modern, London ; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris ; Centre Pompidou, Paris ; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston ; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.

In my works, color appears and disappears during the course of a dialogue with real space and time. What also emerges is the undeniable fact that the information we have acquired and the knowledge we have memorized throughout our lifetime are, probably, not true… at least to some extent.

When we view color through an “elementary prism” that has been stripped of pre-existing meanings, it can awaken other sensory perception mechanisms that are more subtle and complex than those that have been ingrained in us by our cultural conditioning and the constant, ubiquitous barrage of information we face in our contemporary society.

Visit his website www.cruz-diez.com
Follow his foundation on Instagram @cruzdiezartfoundation