Villazan is pleased to present Dynamic visions: the art of perception and space, a groundbreaking exhibition showcasing the works of renowned artists Jesús Rafael Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Victor Vasarely, Serge Poliakoff, Anish Kapoor, José Clemente Orozco, Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies. The exhibition is open to the public from September 26 to November 30, 2024, at Villazan Madrid, Campoamor 17.

Dynamic visions invites visitors to experience the dynamic intersection of perception, color, and space through a carefully curated selection of works that explore the boundaries of art in new and exciting ways. Featuring kinetic art pioneers like Jesús Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez, the exhibition will delve into the revolutionary methods these artists employed to break free from the constraints of two-dimensional forms, creating vibrant, immersive experiences. Victor Vasarely's optical illusions and Serge Poliakoff's exploration of abstract forms add further depth, while Anish Kapoor's sculptures and José Clemente Orozco's powerful, emotive pieces challenge viewers to engage with art beyond traditional limits.

The exhibition presents a collection of works that challenge our understanding of space, perception, and movement. Through a diverse array of mediums, it explores the ways in which art can manipulate visual experience, creating illusions of depth, vibration, and infinite expansion. These artists are brought together to offer new perspectives on how we see, feel, and interact with the world around us.

Jesús Rafael Soto, a key figure in the kinetic and optical art movements, envisioned art as a site where traditional spatial dimensions are collapsed, inviting the spectator into a dynamic and participatory experience. Soto's interest in the fourth dimension can be seen as a response to the crisis of representation identified by critics like Michel Foucault in works such as The order of things. Foucault’s critique of representational paradigms in Western thought finds resonance in Soto’s kinetic environments, which subvert the static gaze and challenge the stability of perception itself. Soto’s vibrating compositions, with their emphasis on movement and viewer interaction, embody Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia, an 'other space' that disrupts conventional spatial understandings.

In the context of René Char’s poetic writings, particularly his collaborations with Surrealists, Soto's work can also be seen as a metaphysical exploration of presence and absence. Char, who argued for the dissolution of boundaries between poetry and reality, mirrors Soto’s desire to dissolve the separation between the artwork and the observer, creating an ever-changing perceptual experience that transcends the purely visual and enters the poetic. Soto’s work aligns with Char’s philosophical musings on the fluidity and ambiguity of existence, as seen in Char’s assertion that art must resist confinement within fixed boundaries.

Similarly, the art of Carlos Cruz-Diez, also a pioneer of kinetic and optical art, reflects the influence of these critical theories and movements. His exploration of color as a constantly evolving phenomenon aligns with Soto’s kinetic practices, but Cruz-Diez brings in his own dialogue with phenomenology, drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ideas of embodied perception. For Merleau-Ponty, perception is not a passive reception of the world but an active engagement, a concept that Cruz-Diez materializes through his Chromatic Induction series, which invites the viewer to experience color as an event unfolding in time and space.

Victor Vasarely, a key figure in the Op Art movement, similarly challenges the viewer’s perception through the manipulation of form, line, and color, creating optical illusions that destabilize the conventional distinctions between figure and ground, reality and illusion. Vasarely's work is influenced by Gestalt psychology, which examines how human perception organizes visual information into patterns and wholes. Critics like Umberto Eco have drawn attention to how Op Art, including Vasarely’s work, engages with semiotics—the study of signs and symbols—and how meaning is constructed in visual forms. Vasarely's geometric abstractions suggest a coded language that both obscures and reveals, engaging with Eco’s theories about the ‘open work’ that is completed by the observer’s interpretation.

Serge Poliakoff, associated with the School of Paris and Tachisme, moves within a different yet related sphere, one in which abstraction becomes a meditation on the invisible forces that govern both artistic creation and the cosmos. Poliakoff’s non-figurative compositions, with their subtle play of form and color, find echoes in the philosophical writings of Gaston Bachelard, particularly his ideas about the poetic imagination and the materiality of space. Bachelard’s notion that space must be experienced emotionally and imaginatively, rather than merely rationally, resonates with Poliakoff’s work, which invites the viewer to perceive beyond the surface to a deeper, almost mystical, dimension.

José Clemente Orozco, a prominent figure of Mexican Muralism, presents an interesting counterpoint to these abstract tendencies. While Orozco’s work is deeply rooted in narrative and figurative representation, his murals can be interpreted through the lens of Walter Benjamin’s critique of history. Benjamin, in his "Theses on the Philosophy of History," challenges linear conceptions of time and advocates for a view of history as a constellation of moments. Orozco’s murals, with their powerful depictions of social struggle and revolutionary change, can be seen as articulating a non-linear, dialectical engagement with history, aligning them with Benjamin’s revolutionary vision of temporality.

Anish Kapoor’s sculptures, with their emphasis on the void and material transformation, engage with post-structuralist ideas, particularly those of Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard. Derrida’s concept of "différance," which refers to the endless deferral of meaning, finds a parallel in Kapoor’s manipulation of space and form, where surfaces become thresholds to an infinite interior, and meaning perpetually eludes closure. Kapoor’s use of materials like Vantablack, which absorbs almost all visible light, creates objects that appear as voids, destabilizing the viewer’s sense of reality and aligning with Baudrillard’s notion of the simulacrum—an image or representation that obscures or denies reality.

Each of these artists navigates their respective movements—be it Mexican Muralism, Kinetic Art, Op Art, Abstract Expressionism, or contemporary sculpture—while engaging with the critical thoughts of their time. Together, they reflect a broader discourse on how art can disrupt conventional narratives, challenge perceptual norms, and probe the very nature of reality. Through their diverse practices, these artists embody a dialogue between visual expression and critical theory, continually redefining the boundaries of artistic creation.