克魯茲-迭斯•卡洛斯藝術展 Carlos Cruz-Diez

色彩藝境與迷思Circumstance and Ambiguity of Color

The University Museum and Art Gallery Hong Kong May 23 - August 17, 2014

The University Museum and Art Gallery, in collaboration with the Cruz-Diez Foundation and China Youth Press and in association with Le French May, Hong Kong, is honoured to present to the public an exhibition of Carlos Cruz-Diez’s capturing work. The artist’s advanced theories on the perception of color will be made visual in a display of both paintings and light installations.

Mr Cruz-Diez was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1923, and he has lived and worked in Paris since 1960. His artistic roots reach back to the Movimiento Cinético Kinetic Movement of the 50’s and 60’s. As his thinking on the visual arts has evolved, his ideas have changed attitudes on how color is perceived in art. Mr Cruz-Diez describes color as an “autonomous reality, devoid of anecdotes, that evolves in real time and space with no need of form or support”, and the presentation of his work embraces this theory and introduces the findings of eight research projects that reveal the myriad ways in which color behaves: Couleur Additive (Chromatic Addition), Physichromie, Induction Chromatique (Chromatic Induction), Chromointerférence, Transchromie, Chromosaturation, Chromoscope, and Couleur dans l’espace (Color launched into Space).

During the early modern era (17th–19th century) a lively academic discussion focused on the use and meaning of line versus color. Whereas a group of artists adhered to the traditional preference of line and compositional elements, other artists understood that color played a much more significant role than was previously admitted, and to them color was equal to form. These fundamentally different approaches led to passionate disagreements in theoretical circles, and some of the ensuing arguments are now famous, such as the ones between Baroque painters Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), or nineteenth-century artists Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) and Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863). As a consequence, French Impressionist art, which heavily relied on the power of color, and of which Cruz-Diez is a distant disciple, did not appear in the West until the late nineteenth century when new scientific ideas—especially the invention of electricity and

electromagnetism—transformed our concept of the world and, in the early twentieth century, showed us that the material universe we inhabit is basically the product of essentially non-material forces of energy.

Carlos Cruz-Diez work can be understood as a visual expression of a contemporary concept of reality, an heir to Impressionism and the Pointillists, and to all who have recognised color as an essential compositional element of painting. His oeuvre is based entirely on chromatic phenomena; not, however, in a chemical—material—sense but in terms of the spectra emitted by the pigments involved, like environments of light.

Celebrated for his attention to light and colors, he has been ranked among other masters of colors including Paul Cezanne (1839–1906), Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859–1891), Josef Albers (1888–1976), and Frank Stella (b. 1936). The French Minister of Culture awarded Carlos Cruz-Diez with an “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres – Commander” in order to acknowledge his prominent achievement and artistic status. His works are on view in Hong Kong for the first time, and they manifest his theoretical concepts and guide us to perceive the “ambiguity of color”.

We are most grateful to our partners, the Cruz-Diez Foundation, China Youth Press, and Le French May, for the opportunity to share Carlos Cruz-Diez’s extraordinary oeuvre with the Hong Kong public and to experience the master artist’s diverse methods of observing and distinguishing colors.

Dr Florian KNOTHE

Director, University Museum and Art Gallery, HKUMay 2014

The Cruz-Diez Foundation, in collaboration with China Youth Press and ZBL & Associates, is pleased to present the exhibition Carlos Cruz-Diez, Circumstance and Ambiguity of Color at the Art Museum of the University of Hong Kong.

Carlos Cruz-Diez: Circumstance and ambiguity of Color is a pedagogical exhibition that enables to experience the mysterious phenomena and scientific principles of color and light, and to discover the artist’s proposal: the AUTONOMOUS COLOR, as an ephemeral and evolving reality, devoid of symbolism.

As the artist himself says: “My artworks show a different level from the classic sense of artworks in which artists simply painted colors on canvas. When bringing colors to space and adding movement to the space, the unique beauty of color can be found. A picture is not just a support where we can see objects described, it is also a place where we seek the meaning of colors’ behavior.” Since 2010, year in which this exhibition was first presented at the Guangdong Art Museum, it has travelled to South Korea (Jeonbuk Art Museum) and throughout mainland China (CAFA Museum, Ningbo Art Museum, Jiangsu Art Museum, Henan Art Museum, etc.). Coinciding with this tour, we released in 2013 the first simplified Chinese edition of Cruz-Diez’s book Reflection on Color, originally published in 1989 and translated into English in 2009.

With this exhibition, the Cruz-Diez Foundation is achieving its mission: to explain and promote the artistic and conceptual legacy of Carlos Cruz-Diez, Franco-Venezuelan artist renowned as one of the twentieth century’s seminal thinkers in the field of color.

Convinced that the arts are the finest communication system ever invented by mankind, we hope that this exhibition will contribute to stimulate and nurture the kind of intellectual inquiry that leads to new forms of expression.

Nicole SCHINDLER Chief Executive Officer, CRUZ-DIEZ Foundation

May 2014

Why an exhibition of ephemeral works “Every art exhibition is in principle an ephemeral manifestation. My kinetic proposals have changed the dialectics between the viewer and the artwork, evidencing notions of time, space, instability, mutation, and the ephemerality of our relations with the universe and the simplest things that surround us.

Therefore, I have structured a sample of ephemeral works, with the purpose of highlighting the temporal fact that signifies making an exhibition.In the end, as in a concert, what remains is the memory of the dialectic experiences and perhaps a commemorative catalog.” Carlos CRUZ-DIEZ / Paris 1999

Addition Chromatique (Caracas, 1959)Critical space generated between two planes of color that when touched, generate another color that does not exist on the support.

Couleur Additive Cercles Permutables, 240x60 cm. Paris, 2011.

Jaune Additif 1959-2011, 180x80 cm.Paris, 2011.

Couleur Additive Permutable 1, 180x80 cm.Paris, 2011.

Induction Chromatique (Paris 1963)Linear structures that capture the phenomenon of complementary color.

Induction du Jaune Mirtha,180x80 cm. Paris, 2011.

Induction ChromatiqueSérie Ana 1, 100x100 cm.Paris, 2011

Induction ChromatiqueSérie Ana 3, 100x100 cm.Paris, 2011

Induction ChromatiqueSérie Ana 2, 100x100 cm.Paris, 2011

Induction ChromatiqueSérie Ana 4, 100x100 cm.Paris, 2011

Induction ChromatiqueSérie Ana 4, 100x100 cm.Paris, 2011

Induction Chromatique à Double Fréquence Alichu,100x300 cm. Paris, 2011

Induction Chromatique à Double Fréquence ABCD,

100x100. Paris, 2011

Induction Chromatique à Double Fréquence Ire,100x300 cm. Paris, 2011

Induction Chromatique à Double Fréquence Maggy,100x300 cm, Paris, 2011.

Couleur dans l’Espace (1993)A line placed at a distance from the colored support that captures viewers and transforms them in a non-existent chromatic spectrum.

Couleur à l’Espace Charlie,180x80 cm. Paris, 2011.

Couleur à l’Espace Ariel 1,52x12 cm. Paris, 2011.

Physichromie (Caracas 1959)Systematic structures that trap light to reveal color climates evolving in time, like sound, with no past or future,that are perceived in the blink of an eye.

Physichromie Modulaire, 80x800 cm. Paris, 2011.

Douches d’Induction Chromatique, Cruz-Diez: Color in Space,Dream Forest Arts Center, Sang Sang Tok Tok Gallery,Seoul, South Korea, 2011.

Douche d’Induction Chromatique (Paris 1965)Works that discover the saturated perception of color.

Carlos Cruz-Diez: Circumstance and ambiguity of Color,

Henan Art Museum, Zhengzhou, China, 2012.

Environnement Chromointerférent (Paris 1974)An abstract situation expressing the transfiguration and ambiguity of space through color, in which the viewer simultaneously becomes both author and actor.

Chromointerferent Environment. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber. CADAFE. Caracas, 1974.

Cruz-Diez: Color in Space, Jeonbuk Province Art Museum, Jeonbuk (South Korea), 2012.

Chromosaturation (Paris 1965)A sensory experience that exposes us to color in space as it evolves in time.

Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and SpaceThe Geffen Contemporary at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles (United States), 2010.

Cruz-Diez: Color in SpaceDream Forest Arts Center, Sang Sang Tok Tok Gallery, Seoul (South Korea), 2011.

Create your own CRUZ-DIEZfrom your iPhone or iPad

The Cruz-Diez Foundation launches the Cruz-Diez App “Interactive Random Chromatic Experience”

Complete version: $ 2,99

Enter Carlos Cruz-Diez’s creative world and get to experience color phenomena by using his language and tools.

Discover and support the initiatives of the Cruz-Diez Foundation: www.cruz-diezfoundation.org

Create your own CRUZ-DIEZfrom your iPhone or iPad

The Cruz-Diez Foundation launches the Cruz-Diez App “Interactive Random Chromatic Experience”

Complete version: $ 2,99

Enter Carlos Cruz-Diez’s creative world and get to experience color phenomena by using his language and tools.

Discover and support the initiatives of the Cruz-Diez Foundation: www.cruz-diezfoundation.org

Interactive Random Chromatic Experience, (1995)“I created a “chromatic score” that the viewer can use to interpret my work just as a musician or an orchestra director would interpret a musical composition.”

Carlos CRUZ-DIEZ

Art in architecture"The works that I create in urban spaces and buildings are part of a plastic discourse generated in time and space that creates situations and chromatic events which change the dialectic between the spectator and the work. Unlike medieval and renaissance artists and the Mexican muralists, my works do not contain referential discourses. They are the medium for an event that happens in the reality of time and space, changing according to the movement of the light and the distance between the work and the spectator. They are independent situations devoid of anecdotes in which the spectator discovers color as it comes into being and disappears, without past or future, in a perpetual present."

PHYSICHROMIE, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France, 1980.

AMBIENTACIÓN CROMÁTICA Machine Rooms, Raúl Leoni Power Plant, Guri, Venezuela, 1977.

PHYSICHROMIE DOUBLE FACEPlace du Venezuela, Paris, France, 1976-78.

LABERINTO CROMOVEGETALUniversidad Simón Bolívar,

Caracas, Venezuela, 1994.

FISICROMÍA DOBLE FAZ PARA MADRIDParque Ferial Juan Carlos I, Madrid, Spain, 1991.

PHYSICHROMIE DOUBLE FACEOlympic Park, Seoul, South Korea, 1988.

ARCOS DE INDUCCIÓN CROMÁTICA PARA MARGARITARoundabout, Porlamar, Venezuela, 1997

CROMOESTRUCTURA RADIALHOMENAJE AL SOL Roundabout Las Trinitarias, Barquisimeto,Venezuela, 1982.

INDUCCIÓN CROMÁTICA POR CAMBIO DE FRECUENCIA Port, La Guaira, Venezuela, 1989.

CILINDROS DE INDUCCIÓN CROMÁTICAPort, La Guaira, Venezuela, 1975.

AMBIENTACIÓN CROMÁTICATorre ABA, Caracas, Venezuela, 1975.

CRUZ-DIEZ PHYSICHROMIE DOUBLE FACEUniversity of Houston, Houston, United States, 2008.

ENVIRONNEMENT CHROMATIQUEHeadquarters of the Union des Banques Suisses, Flurpark SBG, Zürich, Switzerland, 1975.

AMBIENTACIÓN CROMÁTICA José Antonio Páez Power Plant, Santo Domingo, Venezuela, 1973.

INDUCCIÓN CROMÁTICA Torre Stratos, Valencia,

Venezuela, 1988.

AMBIENTACIÓN DE COLOR ADITIVOAirport International Simón Bolívar, Maiquetía, Venezuela, 1974.

FISICROMÍA, Caracas, Venezuela, 1974

Carlos Cruz-Diez (1923) is one of the great figures of the Kinetic-Optic-art movement.

His proposal, one of the most original of that movement, reveals the artist as one of the last theorists about color. His research,

based on three chromatic conditions, subtractive, additive and reflected, has brought art a new way of understanding the color phenomenon, greatly expanding its perceptual universe.

Cruz-Diez’s work revolves around color conceived as an autonomous reality, devoid of anecdotes, progressing in space and real time without past or future, in perpetual present. In his works, color appears as a reality that can exist without the help of the form and even stand unaided. His work includes eight investigations: Couleur Additive, Physichromie, Induction Chromatique, Chromointerférence, Transchromie, Chromosaturation, Chromoscope and Couleur dans l’espace.

«In my works, color appears and disappears in the course of the dialogue that is generated in real time and space. Simultaneously, it unquestionably appears that the acquired information as well as the knowledge stored in the course of our living experience, aren’t probably true... at least partially. It is also possible that with color, approached through a «basic vision» devoided of predetermined meaning, we are able to awaken other sensitive apprehension mechanisms more subtle and complex than those imposed by cultural conditioning and mass information of contemporary societies.»

Carlos CRUZ-DIEZParis 1969

His works are included, among others, in the permanent collections of:Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne;

The following is a list of his solo and group exhibitions: Le Mouvement, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Low Countries, 1961Mouvement 2, Galerie Denise René, Paris, France, 1964The Responsive Eye, Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States, 1965 Lumière et Mouvement [Light and Movement], Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France, 1967Cruz-Diez: Cinq propositions sur la couleur [Cruz-Diez: Five Proposals on Color], Galerie Denise René, Paris, France, 1969Pabellón de Venezuela, XXXV Biennale di Venetia [Venezuelan Pavilion, 35th Venice Biennial], Venice, Italy, 1970Retrospective, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas, Venezuela, 1981Carlos Cruz-Diez Autonomie der Farbe [The Autonomy of Color], Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany, 1988Une Tour Eiffel haute en Couleurs [A Colorful Eiffel Tower], Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 2003Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States, 2004Lo(s) Cinético(s) [The Kinetic(s)], Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2007In(formed) by Color, The Americas Society, New York, United States, 2008El Color Sucede [Color Happens], Museu d’Art Espanyol Contemporani, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2009; Cuenca, Spain, 2009Carlos Cruz-Diez: The Embodied Experience of Color, Miami Art Museum, Miami, United States, 2010Carlos Cruz-Diez: Color in Space and Time, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States, 2011Carlos Cruz-Diez : A cor no espaço e no tempo [Color in Space and Time], Pinacoteca del estado de Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2012.Carlos Cruz-Diez: El color en el espacio y en el tiempo, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo – MUAC, Mexico City, Mexico, 2012Light Show, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom, 2013La invención concreta. Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2013Dynamo. Un siècle de lumière et de mouvement dans l’art. 1913-2013,Grand Palais, Paris, France, 2013 Didática e dialética da cor, Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2014

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Paris, 2012

www.cruz-diezfoundation.orgwww.hkumag.hku.hk

AMBIENTACIÓN CROMÁTICA Centro de Acción Social por la Música,Caracas, Venezuela, 2007.