Carlos CRUZ-DIEZ - Environnement de Transchromie Circulaire, 1965-2017

Carlos CRUZ-DIEZ

1923, Caracas (Venezuela) - 2019, Paris (France)

French artist of Venezuelan origin, Carlos Cruz-Diez has lived and worked in Paris since the 1960s. He is considered as one of the major actors of optical and kinetic art, an artistic current that claims "the awareness of the instability of reality". His research has made him one of the thinkers of colour in the 20th century.

Carlos Cruz-Diez's plastic discourse is based on the chromatic phenomenon conceived as an autonomous reality that evolves in space and time, without the help of form or support, in a continuous present.

His works are present in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as: 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, colour appears and disappears in the course of the dialogue that takes place between space and real time. At the same time, there is an indisputable fact that the information acquired, as well as the knowledge memorized in the course of our life experience, is probably not certain... at least in part.
It is possible, moreover, that thanks to colour, approached through an "elementary vision" devoid of pre-established meanings, we may be able to awaken other mechanisms of sensitive apprehension, more subtle and complex than those imposed by the cultural conditioning and mass information of contemporary societies".
Carlos Cruz-Diez Reflection on colour, Paris: Beaux-Arts de Paris, les éditions, 2013

The work for Paris La Défense

L'Environnement de Transchromies by Carlos Cruz-Diez is a circular, participative and shimmering structure, at the heart of which the spectator is invited to rediscover his natural or urban environment.

Conceived to be built in situ and outside the walls, the work takes into account the external reality and transforms it by subtracting colour thanks to the transparent slats that blend together. Cruz-Diez deploys in it a singular conception of abstraction, initiated in 1969 when he elaborated his first "Project for an environment of subtractive colour".

ENVIRONNEMENT DE TRANSCHROMIE CIRCULAIRE, 1965-2017
Steel and glass
Unique piece
Courtesy Galerie Philippe Gravier, Paris