.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Celebrated as a progenitor of the Op Art movement, Nº 11-3 (from 23 series) exemplifies Le Parc’s utopian vision for art and society through his perceptually illusionary paintings. In Buenos Aires, formative encounters with works by Victor Vasarely and Lucio Fontana introduced Le Parc to scientific optics and theories of multidimensional space. Yet it was in Paris during the 1960s that his experimentation with light and movement came to fruition. Co-founding Groupe de la Recherche d'Art Visuel, Le Parc’s pioneering contributions to kineticism and optical art probed the social valence of art, tested through the staging of numerous interactive installations conducive to finding new modes of emancipatory engagement.
Rejecting the self-indulgent aesthetics of abstract expressionism, Le Parc, François Morellet, Hugo García Rossi and other members of the collective endorsed a non-figurative visual language that exploited colour, space and movement. Utilising the illusionary capabilities intrinsic to non-representational forms, Nº 11-3 (from 23 series) generates visual vibration facilitated by the viewer’s interaction, providing an apt metaphor for the world in flux. As the artist explains ‘I have tried […] to elicit a different type of behaviour from the viewer […] to seek, together with the public, various means of fighting off passivity, dependency or ideological conditioning, by developing reflective, comparative, analytical, creative or active capacities’.
Le Parc's solo work as well as his work dating from the period when he was active in Groupe de la Recherche d'Art Visuel has been included in countless exhibitions internationally. Le Parc's work was included in the landmark 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye at The Museum of Modern Art. The following year, he was awarded the Grand Prize for International Painting at the Venice Biennale. His work is also included in a multitude of international museum collections such as Museo de Bellas Artes y Fundación Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Tate Gallery, London, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Musée d’art modern de la ville de Paris, Museum Boijmans-Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Rejecting the self-indulgent aesthetics of abstract expressionism, Le Parc, François Morellet, Hugo García Rossi and other members of the collective endorsed a non-figurative visual language that exploited colour, space and movement. Utilising the illusionary capabilities intrinsic to non-representational forms, Nº 11-3 (from 23 series) generates visual vibration facilitated by the viewer’s interaction, providing an apt metaphor for the world in flux. As the artist explains ‘I have tried […] to elicit a different type of behaviour from the viewer […] to seek, together with the public, various means of fighting off passivity, dependency or ideological conditioning, by developing reflective, comparative, analytical, creative or active capacities’.
Le Parc's solo work as well as his work dating from the period when he was active in Groupe de la Recherche d'Art Visuel has been included in countless exhibitions internationally. Le Parc's work was included in the landmark 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye at The Museum of Modern Art. The following year, he was awarded the Grand Prize for International Painting at the Venice Biennale. His work is also included in a multitude of international museum collections such as Museo de Bellas Artes y Fundación Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Tate Gallery, London, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Musée d’art modern de la ville de Paris, Museum Boijmans-Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.