GALERIE BUGADA & CARGNEL PARIS JULIO LE PARC Hall 2.0, stand G12 1 Julio Le Parc with Continuel-Lumière Cylindre in 1962 On the cover: Julio Le Parc with Continuel-Lumière Cylindre 1962 - 2012 wood, plexiglas, motor, light bulb 510 x 460 x 140 cm exhibition view, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013 2 JULIO LE PARC “Generally speaking, I have tried, Historic figure and committed artist, Julio Le Parc (b. 1928) is a major figure through my experiments, to elicit a in Op and Kinetic art, founding member of G.R.A.V. (Groupe de Recherche different type of behavior from the d’Art Visuel, or Visual Art Research Group) and recipient of the Grand Prize for viewer […] to seek, together with the Painting at the 1966 Venice Biennale. This socially conscious artist was expelled public, various means of fighting off from France after the events of May 1968. A defender of human rights, he passivity, dependency or ideological fought against dictatorship in Latin America. In 1972, when the Musée d’Art conditioning, by developing reflective, Moderne de la Ville de Paris offered him a large retrospective, Le Parc decided comparative, analytical, creative whether or not to accept by flipping a coin: the exhibition did not take place. or active capacities.” Julio Le Parc Julio Le Parc creates interactive, social art. More than a mere play of light and shapes, his works are activated by the viewer’s physical interac- tion: movements of the retina, of the body, activate paintings, sculptures and installations that, as the artist insists, seek to “elicit a different behavior from the spectator […] and try to search alongside the public for the means of combating passivity, dependence or ideological conditioning, and to develop capacities for reflection, comparison, analysis, creation and action.” Particularly explorative of the spectator’s role, the artist creates work that is, in his own words, both interactive and unstable. Le Parc intends to elicit a specific reaction: faced with his work, viewers must lose their bearings then look at their surroundings from a fresh perspective. Le Parc’s Light Works, for instance, are more than mere visual play: they challenge our relationship to the world. And light itself is more than a mere medium: it allows Le Parc to achieve his goal of creating a work that is constantly changing. The result is a never-ending, unpredictable play of light and shadow. For the visitor, it is an immersive esthetic experience. For the artist, it is about “initiating or pur- suing the demolition of traditional notions about art, its construction, display and appreciation.” Daria de Beauvais, exhibition catalog The Illusion of Light, Palazzo Grassi / François Pinault Foundation, Venezia, 13.04 - 31.12.2014, Electa editions 3 The G.R.A.V., Paris, 1961. From left to right: François Morellet, Martha Le Parc wearing Julio Le Parc, Argentinian Pavillion, Julio Le Parc, Francisco Sobrino, Jean-Pierre Yvaral and Joël Stein. Lunettes pour une vision autre, 1965 Venice Biennale, 1966 1928 Le Parc creates his first Reliefs and experiments BIOGRAPHY Birth of Julio Le Parc on September 23, 1928 in on visual instability through the use of light Mendoza, Argentina. and movement, starting his series of Continuels Mobiles. 1943 - 1946 Le Parc attends evening classes at the School of 1962 Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. He develops his interest G.R.A.V. has its first exhibition, and Le Parc further for avant-garde artistic movements, particularly experiments on ligth, be it moving, projected, for his professor Lucio Fontana’s Spatialism and reflected or pulsating. the Concrete Art Invention movement. 1963 1955 For the 3rd Biennale de Paris, G.R.A.V. creates After a few years of living on the edge of society, its famous labyrinth, a collective work bringing Le Parc enters the Higher School of Fine Arts of together works by all its members: cylinders, mir- Buenos Aires. Politically engaged, president of ror walls, ‘all over’, that turn visitors into actors the university’s student union, he plays an active of their own performance, experiencing spatio- role in the students’ movements, and meets his temporal disorientation. future wife Martha. Le Parc integrates exterior contingencies in his works and shows increasing interest in the active 1958 involvement of the spectator by means of play Le Parc is selected to represent Argentina at the rooms and games to be activated. 1st Biennale de Paris, just launched by French Minister of Culture André Malraux. He moves to 1966 Paris where he settles. Le Parc is awarded the International Grand Prix Le Parc begins to work on the painting’s surface for Painting at the 33rd Venice Biennale. The and establishes unitary systems for governing the sensorial and aesthetic experience provided by surface and shapes. a room filled with 40 unstable mobiles, rotating mirrored discs, machines projecting and reflect- 1959 ing light into the space blurs the line separating In reaction against Tachism and taking as a start- art into categories such as sculpture or painting. ing point the work of Victor Vasarely, the writings G.R.A.V. organizes Une journée dans la rue, a of Mondrian and the tradition of Constructivism, public event taking place in various streets of Le Parc develops a radical approach to the paint- Paris and involving active participation of passers- erly surface. by, who improvise choregraphies on Le Parc’s Le Parc works on progressive sequences of forms, Dalles mobiles. In a pre-May 68 agitprop mode, first in black and white, then in colour, choosing G.R.A.V. aims at promoting a democratic type of a unique scale of fourteen colors, which he has art and mixing life with an art filled with social not modified to this day. The choice of following concerns. predetermined systems limits as much as possible the expression of the artist’s subjectivity on the 1967 canvas. Le Parc holds his first retrospective at Instituto di Tella, Buenos Aires, followed by retrospectives 1960 in Caracas, Montevideo and Asuncion. Le Parc cofounds the G.R.A.V. (Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel) along with Horacio 1968 Garcia Rossi, François Morellet, Francis Sobrino, G.R.A.V. is very active during the May 68 events, Joël Stein and Yvaral. Nonconformists, commit- and particularly Le Parc, which leads him to be ted, they want to set creation free and explore expelled from France. He cancels his participation new fields. G.R.A.V. is in contact with other to Documenta in Kassel by telegram. The expul- artists groups abroad, who also aim at taking sion order is suspended five months later thanks away the sacred aura of art and the artist: Group to the intervention of French Minister of Culture N in Padua, Group T in Milan, Group Zero in André Malraux. Düsseldorf… 4 Une journée dans la rue, Paris, 1966 Actress Dany Carrel in front of Julio Le Parc’s Cloison à lames réfléchissantes Faites tomber les mythes, 1969 in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s movie La Prisonnière, 1968 The sort of social inteervention that G.R.A.V. was 2011 promoting through its art having become reality Le Parc is at honor at ERRE – Variations labyrin- though the May 68 event, the artists decide to thiques at Centre Pompidou, Metz, where he disband the group. presents several rooms with large-scale immer- sive light works. 1971 Le Parc returns to painting, a practice he has 2012 abandonned since 1960, and develops colors Le Parc inaugurates the Cultural Space Julio experiments on large scale canvas based his 14 Le Parc in his hometown of Mendoza. color basis. He lightens the Obélisque of Place de la Concorde in Paris, being the first living artist to do a project 1972 on the historical monument – the blue Klein light- Le Parc holds a retrospective exhibition at the ning, the only other artistic project done on the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf involving the participation monument, was realised long after Klein’s death. of the public. He is offered a major retrospective at the Musée 2013 d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris. Wondering Le Parc has a major solo exhibition at Palais whether to accept or not, he writes a critical text de Tokyo, Paris, his first major show in a French on the position of the artist and the institution. institution since the 1980s, some 41 years after Considering the pros and the cons balance, he the retrospective that did not happen at Musée decides to leave it to chance to decide, and have d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. one of his sons toss a coin. The result is so that he He is the artist with the most works in the group turns down the offer. exhibition Dynamo. Un siècle de lumière et de mouvement dans l’art, 1913-2013, at Galeries 1975 nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. Le Parc develops the Modulations series using the technique of airbrush paint to obtain gradual 2014 shades from dark to clear and a precise modula- A large ensemble of works by Le Parc belong- tion of the surface of the canvas. ing to the Daros Collection is shown in Le Parc Lumière, Casa Daros Latinamerica, Rio de Janeiro, 1978 and his major work Continuel Lumière - Cylindre, Le Parc has a retrospective exhibition at the Mirò from to the Collection Pinault, is shown in the Foundation in Barcelona. exhibition The Illusion of Lights at Palazzo Grassi, Venice. 1993 Le Parc presents an immersive light room in the exhibition Latin American Artists of Twentieth Century at Museum of Modern Art, New York. 2000 Le Parc shows historical light pieces at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Neuquen; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Cordoba.