Wood, painted wood, metal, and nails
During the 1950s Soto established the theoretical and physical foundations of his oeuvre. His body of work is made up of objects that create optical vibrations through the movement of the spectator, which continuously modifies the perception of the work. In 1959 Soto began producing a series of works generically titled Vibraciones (Vibrations), in which he applied discarded materials and painted metal wires to irregular pictorial surfaces traced with parallel lines. Soto intended these so–called baroque works to engage with Informalism—a style that placed emphasis on formless texture and tactile touch—and New Realism—a movement that favored materials taken from everyday urban life. By producing opitcal vibrations against these textured supports, Soto created the illusion of their dematerialization.
New Perspectives in Latin American Art, 1930–2006: Selections from a Decade of Acquisitions, November 21, 2007–February 25, 2008.
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Jesús Rafael Soto
Venezuelan, 1923–2005 33 works onlineThe artist Jesús Rafael Soto remembered days working as a messenger in his childhood. It was something I never got tired of seeing, that vibrating mass floating in space and shining over the roads.
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Good Vibrations
Gallery 410Jesús Rafael Soto and Bridget Riley, the two artists paired in this gallery, never met. But they each emerged as a leader of the international Op art movement in the 1950s and ’60s.
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