Jesús Rafael Soto
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Jesús Rafael Soto , (born June 5, 1923 in Ciudad Bolívar , Venezuela, † January 14, 2005 in Paris , France ) was a Venezuelan painter and sculptor . From 1950 he lived and worked in Paris and Caracas and was one of the most important representatives of kinetic art and optical art in South America and Europe since the 1960s .
life and work
Jesús Rafael Soto studied from 1942 to 1947 at the art school Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Artes Aplicadas in Caracas . After graduating, he headed the small art school Escuela de Artes Plásticas in Maracaibo until 1950 . He experimented with optical illusions and visual tricks of Op Art in the style of Victor Vasarely . In 1950 he went to Paris and began to deal with serial art. These include his works Repetition , Progression and Serial . He also worked with three-dimensional effects that he created on flat surfaces.
In the 1960s he dealt with structural and optical effects. He created objects out of iron wire and wood, which he called vibration pictures. These vibration images consisted of thin pendulum rods arranged in rows, which were attached to finely striped, flat surfaces. Examples are his vibration images, vibration image with black stick , vibration , vibration image with green-black grid or writing . The arrangement of the wires and the stripes on the surface showed a different optical effect depending on the viewing angle and created almost hypnotic effects on the viewer when he moved in front of the picture. Some of his vibration pictures were shown in the light and movement department at documenta III in Kassel in 1964 .
Soto later created objects that he called penetrables , in which the viewer became part of the artwork. The penetrables partly consisted of large cubes or suspended nylon tubes that the viewer should walk through. Some generated metallic resonances as they passed through specially attached aluminum tubes .
Jesús Rafael Soto also created wall paintings in 1957 in the University of Caracas, 1968 in the University of Rennes , in 1971 an installation in the Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt am Main or in 1973 in the Central Bank in Caracas.
His works have been shown in a large number of exhibitions around the world, including the Kunsthalle Bern (1968), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum , New York (1974), in Quadrat Bottrop (1990), in Madrid (1992) and are in public collections around the world, including in the Museum of Concrete Art in Ingolstadt or in Il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri .
His hometown Ciudad Bolívar dedicated a museum to him, which he and the architect Carlos Raúl built Villanueva and opened in 1973 Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto .
Exhibitions
- 1968: Jesus Raphael Soto , Kestner Society , Hanover.
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.
- Wieland Schmied : Jesus Raphael Soto , catalog for the exhibition in the Kestner Society Hannover 1968.
Web links
- Literature by and about Jesús Rafael Soto in the catalog of the German National Library
- Homepage of the artist
- Jesús Rafael Soto on kunstaspekte.de
- Examples of his work on artfact.com
- Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto (multilingual, also German)
- Materials by and about Jésus Rafael Soto in the documenta archive
Individual evidence
- ↑ documenta III. Catalog: Volume 1
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Soto, Jesús Rafael |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Soto, Jesús Raphael; Soto, Jesús Raphaël (French spelling) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Venezuelan painter, sculptor and kinetic artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 5, 1923 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ciudad Bolívar , Venezuela |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 14, 2005 |
| Place of death | Paris |