June 13 – September 29, 2019
Works from the Permanent Collection
Victor Vasarely’s artistic oeuvre spans more than six decades. Born in 1906, a Hungarian-born Frenchman, the founder of Op Art is one of the great artists of the twentieth century. Vasarely moved between the various styles of the interbellum period and post-war modernism. His artistic roots lay in his explorations of early modern art. He took inspiration and orientation from theories of the Bauhaus, Suprematism and geometric abstraction.
Vasarely’s colourful images – as technical as they are psychedelic in appearance – would one day push their way into three-dimensional space by means of optical effects. In the process, they bewilder the senses and deceive perception. It contributed to shaping the iridescent face of 1960s and ’70s modernism and was as much a part of the artistic avant-garde as of popular culture.
Drawing from the AGN’s permanent collection and a private collection we see examples of the Vegaseries. The impression of surface tension — that sense that an object or force is being applied to the canvas from behind. Vasarely’s style during the 1960’s became a universal vocabulary for graphic art. Op Art was finally being defined and celebrated as a coherent movement.
Workshop: OP ART: a Cut Above
August 21, 2019, from 9am – 1pm
Fee: $20.00 – Registration required.
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