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Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection Victor Vasarely, introduced by Herbert Rickman and Diane Waldman, 1984 HERBERT RICKMAN Can you hear me? You cannot hear me. Now you can hear me. Okay, I feel like this is the Academy Awards Ceremony, but I assure you I am not Johnny Carson. Now we are here to listen to Victor Vasarely in what will undoubtedly be a rather sterling speech. There are however (break in audio) HERBERT RICKMAN — urban architecture. Many of the cities of Europe today are reflective, in the best sense, of his influence, so, I am proud to read this message from the mayor and then, I want to make a presentation to Victor Vasarely. It reads, “To all in attendance, Guggenheim Museum, greetings. On behalf of the City of New York, I salute our distinguished visitor from France, the world- renowned artist, Victor Vasarely. The enduring impact of Vasarely, the father of optical art, lives in the beauty [00:01:00] and power of shape, light, color, and movement, the stuff of which light itself is made. How fortunate we New Yorkers are that Victor Vasarely is sharing his vision and genius with us once more. While I cannot join you this evening, I am very much with you in the vibrant spirit of this occasion. Accordingly, I have asked my special assistant, Herb Rickman, to relay my best wishes to one and all with a special 76th birthday congratulations to our welcome guest and superb artist, and now, honorary New Yorker, Victor Vasarely.” (applause) I’m going to pin Mister Vasarely with the — this is New York’s most significant gift, sir, and I will explain it to you later in French. It’s the apple. For us, it’s the Légion d'honneur, and it represents the highest award of the City of New York. There’s also a personal gift from the mayor. [00:02:00] (applause) May I also take this opportunity to introduce the deputy director of the Guggenheim Museum, Diane Waldman. (applause) DIANE WALDMAN Thank you very much. It is a pleasure for me to welcome you to the Guggenheim Museum, and I send greetings to all of you from Peter Lawson-Johnston, the president of the museum, and Thomas Messer, director of the Guggenheim Foundation. Both of them, unfortunately, could not be here tonight because they are in Venice, prior to the opening of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection this Saturday, but they have asked me to welcome you here and to thank you all for coming. I would also like to thank Victor Vasarely, whose art is not only represented [00:03:00] in this museum, but is renowned throughout the world, and is represented in most, if not all, of the major museums in the world. Finally, and briefly, I would like to thank Dean London, and NYU, for our collaboration, which has turned out to be very happy indeed. I welcome you once again, and know that we will all look forward to hearing Victor Vasarely’s lecture this evening. Thank you. (applause) HERBERT RICKMAN We also have an award for Mister Vasarely. It is the highest award given in the Gallatin division. This award is given each year to a prominent person who has contributed a good deal, to the life of the city, the life of the university, and the life of the arts. It is called the Certificate of Distinction, and it is awarded this year to Victor Vasarely, [00:04:00] for his artistic contributions to the aesthetic quality of this world. I’d like to present this award to Mister Vasarely now. (applause) I also have the great honor this evening to introduce Mister Vasarely, by making a couple of comments about his art. I am not an art historian, but I’ve come to appreciate, and see, and admire, Mister Vasarely’s work. For some, Victor Vasarely is an Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 1 of 11 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection Victor Vasarely, introduced by Herbert Rickman and Diane Waldman, 1984 interesting artist whose experiments in form and color have broken new artistic ground. For others, he is the father of op art, an illusionist, who dissects, and re-dissects, visual perspective. For me, Victor Vasarely possesses these characteristics in one other human dimension that sets him apart [00:05:00] from other contemporary artists. He is a visionary. Vasarely has seen the future. He is one of those artists imbued with an anticipation of what will be. If Cézanne was the artistic bridge between the nineteenth and the twentieth century, Vasarely is the bridge between the twentieth and the twenty-first century. His work transcends time. His vision is at once, telescopic and kaleidoscopic. He hones in on a subject with extraordinary specificity, and then uses color and light to create movement and change. At first, Vasarely was a commercial artist using his wit and drafting skills to describe health problems. He drew a cane with a sad face to describe rheumatism, and a handkerchief blowing in the wind to convey cold symptoms. But like all great artists, his work went through a metamorphosis, albeit his interest in shapes and perspective was to characterize all of his later painting. Monsieur Vasarely was intent on changing the environment, as were many [00:06:00] members of the Bauhaus school. But for him, shapes assumed aesthetic dimensions: gates appear to open, spheres appear to converge. His artistic world is a play. His representations are engaged in a game of hide and seek, transmogrified into an existential concern for who is hiding, and who does the seeking. Vasarely’s world of shapes is at first blush a child’s world, where images reign. But on reflection, this is an art of very rare sophistication, as if force fields, computer scales, differential equations and quasars will give in visual representation. His art converts the ineffable characteristics of science into a sensuous experience. I was amused by people I observed at the Vasarely Foundation in Aix-en-Provence who said, “I don’t appreciate this abstract art,” and then sat for half an hour staring hypnotically at one Vasarely painting. Of course, that is really easily explained. Vasarely, in [00:07:00] the Vasarely world, the spiral goes on to infinity. Its depth is explored at risk of being enveloped into a visual whirlpool. The Vasarely planets create a force field, an undefined valley that playfully engages our sense of perspective. Does the field come forward, or does it retreat into the distance? It is difficult, on the basis of a printer or serigraph, to appreciate the majesty of Vasarely’s work. His most impressive paintings are in Aix and at his museum in Gordes, the large Vasarely paintings and tapestries that create a wonderland of walls in the foundation are the entrance gates to a land of visual intrigue and curiosity. Once one has settled on a bench observing the movement of shape and color, time stops. The viewer is transported to any place where the horizon opens to an adventure of color. A Vasarely painting is like a building once described by [Heidegger?]: “You can with extraordinary exactitude, note its dimensions, its color, its design, and still not provide a vivid description of the building. [00:08:00] That can only be conveyed if you’ve had the experience of being in it.” This is equally true of the Vasarely design. Its colors, its shapes, its lighting don’t begin to approach the feelings engendered in observing the painting firsthand — the moment when the personal and the artistic sensibility are united. If the contemporary artist sees the world as morose, and many do, Vasarely is joyful. If the artist is melancholy, Vasarely is exuberant. His artistic exploration not only provides the viewer with fascination, the work itself is forever fascinating. His work is intrinsically the human imagination made pictorial. For scientists looking for answers to our teleology, there is always enigmas. For the psychologists looking for the deepest emotion, there is only superficial explanations. For the artist searching for the foundations of his work, a way to explain his role in this century, there is Vasarely. Thank you. [00:09:00] (applause) (side conversation in French; inaudible) Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 2 of 11 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection Victor Vasarely, introduced by Herbert Rickman and Diane Waldman, 1984 VICTOR VASARELY Hello. (applause) I am very happy to be here in New York. (applause) [00:10:00] And not France. (laughter) [00:10:06] [French] [00:11:07] TRANSLATOR Okay, I’m going to read you the English. “In 1955, I identified two notions, until then separate: form and color. From now on, form-color — one equals two, two equals one — constitutes the plastic unit. The unit consists of two constants: the form, nucleus, and its surrounding complement, the substance, square. Besides its two-form aspect, the unit necessarily features a two-color aspect, which is blended or contrasted at the same time as positive and negative. Thus, the resolved unit is contradictory, and is a synthesis of pure dialectics.” VICTOR VASARELY [00:11:56] [French] [00:13:34] TRANSLATOR “Each unit is reducible and extensible in proportions, giving us a full range of quantities, or the composed mobile scale. The squareness of these quantities provides maximum rational flexibility, as well as an underlying arithmetic reference. With an alphabet of 30 forms-colors, within the unit alone, we possess several thousand virtualities, by simple permutation of the pairs.