Jesús Rafael Soto
Bio
(Ciudad Bolivar, 1923 - Paris, 2005). He studied at the School of Art in Caracas, where he met Carlos Cruz Diez and Alejandro Otero. In 1950 he moved to Paris, where he lived until his death. In France he discovers the work of Paul Klee and, above all, Piet Mondrian. In 1966 he participated in the Venice Biennale. In 1988 he created the Virtual Sphere for the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seoul. In the nineties he shows his work at the Museum of Modern Art in Kamakura, Japan (1990), at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris (1993), at the Kunshalle in Cologne, Germany (1993), at the MOMA in New York (1993) and at the São Paulo Biennial (1966). His work is part of important international collections and one of the main museums of plastic arts in Venezuela bears his name.
Statement
Starting from cubist and constructivist influences, he became one of the main representatives of kinetic and optical art. The development of his work begins with perceptual kineticism to reach the total conquest of space.
His kineticism is characterized by integrating the viewer's perception in displacement in front of the object. The first two-dimensional works of the fifties were soon followed by others in which space intervened as a dynamic element. By superimposing transparent planes, he created multiple images for the gaze of a mobile spectator; the same effect was achieved through surfaces of parallel lines that serve as a background for thin suspended rods, whose lines are added to each other to create ever-changing configurations.
2.5 x 4m / 98.4 x 157 in
