This February, in collaboration with the Fondation Vasarely, Omer Tiroche Contemporary Art (London) presents a survey of works by the ‘Father of Op Art’ Victor Vasarely. “Pour un Manifeste” spans Vasarely’s career from the early abstracts of the 1950s right up until the end of his working life.
The exhibition takes inspiration from Vasarely’s controversial “Notes Pour un Manifeste“, first published in 1955 alongside a group exhibition held at the Galerie Denise René, Paris. Printed on bright yellow paper, the Manifeste questioned the roles of viewer and artist with new theories of kinetic plasticity and ‘Art for All’.
Closing the distance between a modern consumer society and ‘high’ art, Vasarely placed emphasis on active participation from an observer, suggesting the potential for different images to be seen from all viewpoints.
As one of the most important pioneers of post war art, Victor Vasarely anticipated and eventually fostered the Op Art movement that would sweep across Britain and America. To see his work up close is to enter an ocular circus of tunnels and mazes; black holes that vacuum you in, ballooning squares that push you out, resulting in an unsettling sensation of vertigo.
The shifting perspectives appeal to our universal fascination with illusion and reality; a sleight of hand that hacks into the mysterious circuitry of awareness and interpretation, reminding us that seeing is not always believing.
Victor Vasarely: Pour un Manifeste
08.02.2016 – 20.05.2016
Images courtesy of Fondation Vasarely and Omer Tiroche Contemporary Art
Discover: www.otca.co.uk
