The Hungarian-born Victor Vasarely, who completed his life’s work in France, was a key figure of abstract geometric art, which became an international movement known as kineticism. The distinctive style of his work exploded into the public consciousness in the mid-1960s as op-art, setting off a hugely popular fashion wave. His grid-like compositions based on the contrast between black and white created the illusion of out-of-plane movement, bulging or sudden swelling by shifting or bending lines. Vasarely used the absolute contrast between light and dark to create the illusion of pictorial processes in time and space. His optical experiments led him to connect the plane of his compositions closed on four sides with the impression of motion. He first began to apply his method on works constructed from acrylic sheets or glass and organised from the stereoscopic view of various layers shifted on top of each other. These ‘deep kinetic compositions’, first exhibited in 1955, were coupled with a real experience of space. By exploiting the physical laws of refraction and reflection he created spatial collages in a continuous state of transformation through the interference of two identical abstract patterns projected on top of each other and brought to life by the movement of the viewer. The artist’s objects shown here are the vehicles of a creative vision of the three-dimensional possibilities of flat surfaces modulated by light.

Márton Orosz