Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel
The Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV) was a group of kinetic artists founded in Paris in 1960 .
Story and goal
The founders and most important members included the artists Julio Le Parc , François Morellet , Horacio Garcia Rossi , Francisco Sobrino , Joël Stein and Yvaral .
The first ideas for founding the group came up in 1958. The group worked primarily with the means of light and movement. The group defined their artistic goal in a manifesto that appeared in 1961. In it it is formulated that the means of kinetic art are to be used to “create a new visual relationship between the object and the eye of the beholder” , “in which the meaning and intervention of the artist are limited to a minimum.” The group designed shared environments , grid-like spatial structures and kinetic objects.
“... We want to attract the viewer's attention, free him up, loosen him up. We wish his sympathy. We want to put him in a position that will set him in motion and make him her Lord. We want him to agree to play a game. We want him to seek interaction with other viewers. We want him to show more awareness and action. A viewer who is aware of his power and tired of so many errors and mystifications will be able to make his revolution in art and to follow the signs of action and cooperation. "
The group also introduced a collaborative research program to scientifically substantiate their visual goals. The program was presented to the public in 1966 during their “Une journée dans la rue” in Paris. The group disbanded in 1969. The individual members went their own artistic ways.
Important exhibitions (selection)
The group has participated in numerous international exhibitions or has held solo exhibitions, including (among others):
- 1960: Paris, 1st exhibition of the group's work in their own studio
- 1963: Rio de Janeiro : Museum of Modern Art, San Marino : 4th Biennale (gold medal), Paris: 3rd Biennale (first prize for group work)
- 1964: Buenos Aires : Museum of Fine Arts ( L'instabilité ), then, São Paulo ; Paris: Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Nouvelle Tendance); Kassel , participation in documenta III in the light and movement department ; New York City : The Contemporaries ( Labyrinth III )
- 1965: New York, The Museum of Modern Art ( The Responsive Eye ); St. Louis ; Pasadena ; Baltimore ; Buffalo : Albright-Knox Art Gallery ( Kinetic and optic Art today ); Tel Aviv : Museum ( Le Mouvement ); Bern : Kunsthalle ( light and movement / kinetic art ), Brussels : Palais des Beaux-Arts; Baden-Baden : State Art Gallery; Düsseldorf : Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia; Lund : Kunsthalle ( Le merveilleux moderne ); Paris: 4th Biennale; Bordeaux : SIGMA
- 1966 Paris: Une journée dans la rue (A presentation by GRAV in the streets of Paris involving the public and the audience); Bern: Kunsthalle ( white on white ); London : Indica Gallery ; Eindhoven : Van Abbe Museum
- 1967: Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris ( Lumière et Mouvement )
- 1968: Saint-Paul-de-Vence : Fondation Maeght ( Art Vivant 1965-1968 ); Dortmund : Museum am Ostwall ; Grenoble : Maison de la Culture ( Lumière et Mouvement )
Literature and Sources
- documenta III. International exhibition ; Catalog: Volume 1: Painting and Sculpture; Volume 2: Hand Drawings; Volume 3: Industrial Design, Graphics; Kassel / Cologne 1964
- Kimpel, Harald / Stengel, Karin: documenta III 1964 - International Exhibition - A Photographic Reconstruction (series of the documenta archive), Bremen 2005, ISBN 978-3-86108-528-7
- ^ To the exhibition "Labyrinth 3" in New York 1965; at: The Contemporaries, 992 Madison Avenue , 21 New York; from: GRAV, exhibition catalog Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund 1968 Printed in the catalog: 50 Years of the Kunsthalle Bern