Friday, October 31, 2008

Julio Le Parc


I'm willing to bet that not many are familiar with the kinetic artist Julio Le Parc. Born in 1928 in Argentina, he moved to Paris in 1958. Two of his works in American museums can be seen online. At the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington D.C. there is "Instability" (1963) and at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, "Collage After a Theme of 1959" (1971). This is the one that first brought him to my attention, that hooked me, and inspired one of my earliest dots collages titled "After Le Parc (Theme No. 1)" . Also, the Sicard Gallery in Houston, TX has five versions of a wood and metal construction with movable plexiglass squares.

But, although Julio Le Parc seems to be sadly under-represented in the US, his official web site: http://www.julioleparc.org/ makes up for it. If you want to be absolutely dazzled by color, start with the Surface-Color gallery. Then, if you are not on chromatic overload, check out his Alchemies! And be sure not to miss Modulation 1 and Modulation 2. I don't know of any other artist who has so much information about their work so readily available... be prepared to spend a lot of time!

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