(Caracas 1923–2019 Paris)
Physichromie 1498, 2007, signed, titled, dated, inscribed on a metal label on the reverse Cruz-Diez Paris 2007, chromographie on aluminum, acrylic laminate strips on metal backing with aluminum frame, 100 x 100 cm, framed

Certificate of Authenticity:
Carlos Cruz Delgado, Director of Cruz-Diez Art Foundation,
Paris / Houston October 2020

Provenance:
Private Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia – directly acquired from the artist

Literature/Exhibited:
Renate Goldmann (Ed.) Leopold-Hoesch-Museum & Papiermuseum Düren, Unsere Werte - Die Hubertus Schoeller Stiftung/ our Values, The Hubertus Schoeller Foundation, Cologne 2014, p. 102 (ill.), p. 179

The Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Caracas and, after graduating, worked as an illustrator for various advertising agencies. In 1960, he went to Europe and made Paris his home, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life.

Carlos Cruz-Diez is considered one of the most important kinetic and optical artists. In his works, he deals with movement, the body and the awareness of the instability of reality. Through the careful use of geometric shapes and colour patterns, he creates certain effects such as optical illusions and flickers. His works, therefore, do not remain in a two-dimensional stasis, but create a dynamic that allows them to fill the space.

The work “Physichromie 1498” is from the Physichromie research series, where each work is marked with individual numbers. The Physichromie is a structure that creates certain circumstances to allow changes in colour and light. Cruz-Diaz was particularly influenced by the colour experiments of Sir Isaac Newton and the pointillist Georges Seurat. His first Physichromie was created in 1959. The translucent, vertical stripes are applied to a multi-coloured primed surface. As a result of this multi-coloured background, the picture changes its colourfulness as it moves. The individual colour strips are arranged next to each other in contrasting colours.

All boundaries of logic are suspended, and an experience of additive, reflective and subtractive colours emerges. The image creates the impression that there are a greater variety of colours on the surface than are actually present. The picture really encourages the viewer to move in front of the image and to observe the interplay of colours and shapes and allow them to take effect. The slightest variation of light or any movements from the viewer leads to a multitude of colour changes.

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