Julio Le Parc

The work of the Argentine master Julio Le Parc, belonging to the Daros Latin america Collection, Zurich in now on display at the Malba – Fundación Costantini for the exhibition Le Parc Lumière.

Born in Mendoza, Argentina, in 1928, Julio Le Parc moved to Paris in 1958, where he is still based. The political and social upheavals of the 1960s provided a fertile environment in which to develop a wide-ranging oeuvre that gradually brought Le Parc international recognition, as reflected in the prize awarded him at the 1966 Venice Biennale.

This exhibition, organized by Casa Daros and Malba, focuses on one of the most important aspects of the artist’s work—his preoccupation with changing light. The pieces, mostly dating from the 1960s, unite to form a great symphony of moving light. The curatorship is by Hans-Michael Herzog, artistic director and curator of the Daros Latinamerica Collection; Käthe Walser, the institution’s technical curator, who, in a thorough process that included the artist’s participation, restored each one of the exhibited works; and Victoria Giraudo, Malba’s executive coordinator of curatorship.

Along with his fellow members of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), in the 1960s, Le Parc broke radically with artistic convention, rejecting static images in favor of a dynamism that placed works of art in a constant state of flux, eliminating the possibility of fixed viewpoints. The animated play of light in his pieces transforms space, continually dissolving and recreating it and making the viewer an integral part of a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art).

Le Parc’s kinetic works resist interpretation in specific terms. That is the artist’s intention. In a world in which everything and everyone is organized—and that is no less the case in the supposedly free realm of art—Le Parc offers with his kinetic oeuvre a way out of our regimented existence, liberating viewers from their state of dependence by allowing them to become part of a total light experience. Seeking to grant a greater measure of self-determination to his viewer- participants, Le Parc would be the last to impose a particular view on them: “What matters is what people see, not what someone says about it.” The profoundly human character of his work and its political dimension lie in this rigorous eschewal of absolute claims. This is a free and democratic art, full of respect for humanity, anti-authoritarian, and averse to the cult of genius. The exhibition also marks the beginning of a combined effort by Malba – Fundación Costantini and Casa Daros, a new institution partner of Daros Latinamerica collection, opened in March 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (from the press release).

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(1 cover) Julio Le Parc, Lumière en vibration, installation, 1968 (2) Julio Le Parc, Foto Casa Daros, 2010 (3) Julio Le Parc- Continuel lumière cylindre, 1962.