The Visual Art Research Group (GRAV) The exhibition Another Vision: Groupe emerged in in 1960, adding itself de Recherche d’Art Visuel, 1960-1968 to a series of movements at the time is a reinterpretation of the Museo that were seeking art’s autonomy based Tamayo collection, which contains works on a closer relationship between the by three members of GRAV: Julio Le artist and society. GRAV’s peculiarity Parc, and Jean-Pierre was that its point of departure was not Yvaral. By displaying the six pieces only sociological but also visual. in the collection and reconstructing As its name indicates, the group historic pieces and archival material, undertook a series of experiments, the show tries to chronicle the methods practical investigations and collective and strategies this group used. activities in order to understand art as a phenomenon that transcends the Some of the experiments that GRAV established system and whose principal did in the streets of Paris and at agent is the ordinary spectator. various institutions—specifically the 3 works Une journée dans la rue (A Day From the first show GRAV hosted in the Street, 1966) and Salle de Jeux in their own studio to the many (Playroom, 1963-1968)—are transposed happenings they staged in the street, to the space of the Tamayo’s sculpture the group demystified the role of artists patio so that their transcendence can and always tried to open up the work be re-experienced. in order to bridge the gap between art and public. Light, movement and It is prohibited not to participate. space—key elements in the development It is prohibited not to touch. of —were the elements that allowed perception to be the first step in generating this connection.

Fragment of the Program A Day in the Street, 1966. Courtesy of the artists, , Cachan. Another Vision: Instability

I think we are on the verge of a revolution in the arts that is as great as the revolution that has been taking place in the sciences. That is why it seems to me that reason and the spirit of systematic research have to replace individualistic intuition and expression..

François Morellet, Nouvelle Tendance catalogue, 1961

In the late 1950s, Julio Le Parc, Francisco through visual phenomena and by Sobrino and Horacio Garcia Rossi encouraging viewers’ participation. traveled from Argentina to Paris 5 hoping to broaden their knowledge During this time, the GRAV’s members of the art of their time. Upon their found other collectives that had arrival, they met Hungarian artist the same interests, especially in Italy , who in turn introduced —Grupo N in Padua and Grupo T in them to François Morellet, Jöel Stein Milan—and in Yugoslavia, with art and Jean-Pierre Yvaral (Vasarely’s son) critic Matko Meštrovic. With them, in his studio. After meeting several they formed the international times, the six young artists decided to movement Nouvelle Tendance, rent a unit on Beautreillis Street and exchanging ideas about art and work together, forming the Groupe de processes based on movement, light Recherche d’ Art Visuel (GRAV). and mechanics. Moreover, GRAV In their first exhibition at the studio, members turned to gallerist Denise they presented the charter legally René, one of the few promoters of the founding the collective (1960); later, then-incipient kinetic art movement; in texts and manifestos, they stated she had earlier presented the historic the importance of “demystifying” art exhibition Le Mouvement (1955) and

Design included in the Foundation charter, Center of Research for Visual Art, July, Paris, 1960. Courtesy of the artists. soon came to represent the group, showing them at her gallery for the first time in 1961.

In addition to the experience of working collectively, each GRAV artist developed an individual body of work based on a system using different materials like Plexiglas, fluorescent and incandescent lights, plastic and motors, with three-dimensional structures that made the viewer perceive a kind of visual and physical instability. The works were based on 6 the repetition of forms and structures 7 with certain predetermined variables: the goal was to eliminate the idea that art was unique or original, replacing it with the notion of art as something repeatable, and reproducible

With the passing of time, the more the discourses of the group’s members became controversial as they spoke out against art that they considered exhausted, the more they got invited to participate in official or institutional The GRAV in their first reunion in the workshop at Beautreillis Street in Paris, 1960. Courtesy of Julio Le Parc and ADAGP. events; the idea of collectivity and autonomy was gradually dissolved as the individual artists became better known. After eight years of activity, the GRAV members signed a document to dissolve their collective (1968). Une journée dans la rue (A Day in the Street), Paris 1966

The life of big cities could be massively bombarded—not with bombs, but rather with new situations, requiring the participation of and a response from their inhabitants. We do not think our attempt suffices to break with the routine of a weekday in Paris. It can only be considered a mere shift of situation. But in spite of its limited scope, it will help us come into contact with an unprepared public. We see it as an attempt to overcome the traditional relationship between the artwork and the public.

Paris, 1964 - 1966. Garcia Rossi. Le Parc. Morellet. Sobrino. Stein. Yvaral Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel 9

On April 19, 1966, GRAV members That day of events was very important went out to the streets of Paris to to the group’s later work: on the one create various artistic situations that hand, they had put into practice the surprised passersby. An itinerary had notion of art as a social collectivity, been drawn out and activities were and on the other, they had experimented listed on a program: they included with the way in which spectators everything from distributing balloons related to art outside of the and needles to walking on unstable institutional framework. The public, structures, moving through kinetic which was unprepared to see art, was artworks and looking through a confronted with the idea of instability kaleidoscope.Moreover, the artists that Julio Le Parc later defined in distributed questionnaires that compiled relation to the unstable idea of reality. public opinions about the current role of as opposed to participative art. Passers-by at the Unstable floor during “A Day in the Street”, 1966. Courtesy of Julio Le Parc and ADAGP. Salle de Jeux (Playroom) With motors that generated unexpected effects, mechanical structures with unstable movements and manual This site can have the character and appearance of an experimental art contraptions to play with, each gallery, a stage, a television set, a conference room, a studio, a school, etc., spectator had a different experience but it will not have any of these specific characteristics. of the work, without being conditioned Here there will be no pictures hung on the walls or actors or passive spectators, by instructions. or teachers and students, only one or two things and people with time to spare.

Proposal for a Site of Activation Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel, 1963

10 From the outset, GRAV expressed Later in 1963, GRAV presented its first 11 its interest in demystifying art and Labyrinth at the 3rd Paris Biennale undertaking activities that emphasized under the topic of “Instability.” It was the relationship between the artist an enclosed rectangle divided into and society. In 1963, the group published various rooms containing moving, the text Proposal for a Site of Activation, light-emitting objects, which were in which they argued that traditional designed to be modified, manipulated art was subject to the condition that and activated by the public. work be taken in passively by spectators. Instead of this, the artists proposed The Labyrinth was the point of departure activities and processes that entailed for other collective experiments like a “climate of communication and the Playroom, which was shown at the interaction.” following Paris Biennale in 1965. Each artist designed mechanisms that had to be activated by the public; here, the goal was not to have any pre-

established rules, so the experience Julio Le Parc, Design for Stair’s variations, would be different each time. 1968. Courtesy of Julio Le Parc, Cachan. Plan for Playroom, 1965. Courtesy of Julio Le Parc, Cachan. The artists of GRAV reliefs which required the spectator to Biographies Julio Le Parc move to elements to be manipulated… (Mendoza, Argentina, 1928) This point that Le Parc never abandoned According to Frank Popper, French art was collective creation. Indeed, apart Horacio Garcia Rossi Le Parc studied at the Escuela Nacional de historian and specialist in Kinetic Art: from its purely aesthetic applications, [the (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1929 - Paris, Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires where he met France, 2012) Francisco Sobrino, with whom he traveled artwork] was extended and adapted to a We could retrace the evolution of Horacio to Paris in 1958. In 1959 he began working variety of situations, most of them political Garcia Rossi studied at the Escuela Nacional on abstract geometric paintings based on Garcia Rossi´s working methods though his and social. exploration of all the technical, scientific, de Bellas Artes of Buenos Aires from 1950 predetermined systems, first in black and to 1957, where he met Julio Le Parc and white and then in color. As a member of perceptual and material possibilities Jöel Stein, after working and “permutations” Francisco Sobrino. In his early work, GRAV he examined movement and light provided by luminous and chromatic of forms and colours in three-dimensional he experimented with two-dimensional in three-dimensional space, which led phenomena… His propositions have combinations and layerings, he began to compositions in black and white. In 1959, to his firstContinuel Mobiles (Continual always testified to his fundamental concern explore the relations between different he traveled to Paris where he began Mobiles). He then worked with moving, with instability and immaterial realism. elements in movement, suspended objects working with multiplying the number of projected or reflected lights and with and the reflection of light. The dimension shapes in his compositions and juxtaposing the movement of spectators involving their colors and light; this eventually led him to active participation in pieces inside play- Francisco Sobrino began by giving priority of play was perhaps more important for 14 make a series of light installations known rooms and mazes. 15 to the surface, before producing his Stein than for other members of the Group. Plexiglas cubes and other deconstructible as Boîtes à Lumière Instable (Unstable In 1966 he was awarded the International transparent objects, his later concern to Light Boxes). As a member of GRAV, Garcia First Prize for Painting at the Venice The works of Jean-Pierre Yvaral are above Rossi was responsible for pieces that could Biennale, which garnered him greater incorporate instability helped him find all the result of his investigation of visual be manipulated by the spectator, including international renown. He was thrown ways of using moving light. phenomena. Yvaral plays on layering, the Cylindres en Rotation (Rotating out of France for five months in 1968 for displacement and acceleration as well as Cylinders) series. After GRAV broke up, he having participated in political movements. [François] Morellet began experimenting ludic elements, not to mention the visual became interested in semiotics while he Beginning in the mid-1970s, he worked with the rhythmic possibilities of direct effects of transparency, structure, and continued his research into the interaction on his Modulations in gray-scale and later light as early as 1961. His superpositions volume. [Yvaral] had taken an interest in between light and color. in color. His work has been featured in numerous shows at important museums and rhythmic arrangements of light bulbs optical research and science as a model for in Havana, Düsseldorf, Montevideo, and neon tubes created a powerful impres- artistic creation. sion, a real visual shock effect that roused Caracas, Asunción, Mexico City, Stockholm, the viewer from his traditional apathy. Berlin, , Barcelona, Santiago de Frank Popper, “Artistic Groups, Collective Chile, and Porto Alegre. He lives and works Creation and Spectator Participation,” Stratégies in Paris. The logical progression of his work took de participation / GRAV-Groupe de Recherche him to “sequence-surfaces” to reliefs, from d’Art Visuel (France: MAGASIN-Centre National the random movement of his mobiles- d’Art, 1998), 20-21. continuels to his continues-lumière, from François Morellet Francisco Sobrino Joël Stein Jean-Pierre Vasarely - Yvaral (Cholet, France, 1926) (Guadalajara, Spain, 1932) (Saint Martin Boulogne, 1925 - Paris, (Paris, France 1934 - 2002) France, 2012) The self-taught Morellet began painting Sobrino attended the Escuela de Artes The son of Hungarian painter Victor in 1946 while studying at the École des de Madrid in 1946 and then traveled to Stein studied at the École des Beaux-Arts Vasarely, Yvaral studied graphic design and Langues Orientales. As of 1950 he Argentina. At the Escuela Nacional de de Paris and at the Atelier Fernand Léger advertising at the École des Arts Appliqués focused largely on abstraction, reaching Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires he met as of 1946. In 1956 he began working on in Paris. In 1954 he began experimenting a maximum complexity of style between Julio Le Parc and Horacio Garcia Rossi. pieces based on geometric principles, and with geometric abstractions depicting ways 1956 and 1960. As a member of GRAV, In 1958 he settled in Paris with Le Parc. by 1959, he presented his first reliefs that in which the world is organized visually, he was interested in eliminating any There, he began to work on reliefs made were meant to be manipulated by viewers. playing with disturbances in physiological trace of the artist’s individuality from of superimposed, two-dimensional geometric As a GRAV member, he experimented and cognitive phenomena. As a member the artwork. Beginning in 1961, he created shapes, organized systematically with the chromatic polarization of light, of GRAV, Yvaral encouraged viewers to a series of silkscreens, each composed and progressively, made of black, white beginning in 1962, which led him to make manipulate objects, such as his Disques of 40,000 squares and two randomly or colored Plexiglas. Beginning in 1961, a series of light boxes entitled Polascopes. à Manipuler (Discs to Be Manipulated), distributed colors. This was followed as a member of GRAV, he produced With Pierre Schaeffer he published in order to introduce the notion of space in 1962 by his first aluminum spheres. the series Espaces Indéfinis(Indefinite Jeux de Trames (Play of Screens) about and time through the viewers’ movement. Beginning in 1963 he worked on a series Spaces) and Structures permutationnelles the transition that the object undergoes In 1966 he had his first solo show at 16 of pieces with neon lights that turned on (Permutational Structures), which were in the visual field from virtual movement the Howard Wise Gallery in New York. 17 and off rhythmically, and that could in pieces in Plexiglas and aluminum that to real, interactive movement. Based As of 1968 he began to work on paintings some cases be activated by spectators. incorporated the use of light. Sobrino’s on this research he created the series and silkscreens juxtaposing bright colors As of 1968, Morellet made various series first solo show took place at the Galerie Kaléidoscopes (Kaleidoscopes), Trièdres and geometric compositions that suggest such as Désintégrations architecturales Ad Libitum in Antwerp in 1964. He then (Trihedra), Tourne-disques (Turntable), movement, while he also worked in ������indus- (Architectural Disintegrations), which played continued to examine the use of movement and, for the GRAV’s Labyrinthe of 1963, trial design and decoration. with space through geometric shapes in his works, and by the 1980s, he began lamps that could be manipulated. In 1968, and structures, and Tableaux déstabilisés a series of large-format pieces in public he started using colored lasers. His most (Destabilized Canvases), which examined spaces that established a dialogue with recent pieces are sundial-shaped installations the line and its interaction with the space the architecture in their surroundings. He that play with the interaction of lights and in which it exists. Morellet lives and works lives and works in Paris. shadows in movement. in Paris and Cholet. Credits Another Vision: Groupe Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes de Recherche d’Art Visuel Rafael Tovar y de Teresa Curator 1960-1968 President Andrea Torreblanca September 7, 2013 - February 16, 2014 Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes Assistant Curator Consult events at Alberto Ríos www.museotamayo.org María Cristina García Cepeda Facebook: museotamayo General Director Museography Rodolfo García Twitter: @museotamayo Instagram: eneltamayo Xavier Guzmán Urbiola Design Assistant General Director of Architectural Heritage Lídice Jiménez Uribe Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo Paseo de la Reforma 51 Magdalena Zavala Bonachea Installation Staff Bosque de Chapultepec National Visual Arts Coordinator Jorge Alvarado Arellano México, D.F. 11580 Edgar Cabral Ortiz Carmen Cuenca Carrara Juan Martín Chávez Vélez Opening Times Director of Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo José Leonardo López Cruz Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm Daniel Reyes Ramírez Admission Fee $19.00 / General Public Andrés Rivera Plácido Pérez Cué Jorge Sánchez Free admission for students, teachers, and senior citizens with valid ID. Media and Public Relations Director Audiovisual Media Sunday: Free admission Jacobo Horowich

Registrar Naitzá Santiago

Education Xatziri Peña

Editorial Coordinator Arely Ramírez Moyao

Communications Sofía Provencio Cover: Members of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel: Horacio Garcia Rossi, Julio Le Parc, François Morellet, Francisco Sobrino, Beatriz Cortés Jöel Stein and Jean-Pierre Yvaral. Courtesy of the artists and ADAGP. © Jöel Stein.