Art Taipei 2017
20.10 – 23.10
Carlos Cruz-Diez, Miguel Chevalier, Laurent Martin ‘Lo’, Javier León Pérez and Maria García Ibañez
In line with Puerta Roja’s mission of promoting established and emerging contemporary Latin American and Spanish artists in Asia-Pacific, this exhibition will feature a selection of works by Franco-Venezuelan Op-Art master Carlos Cruz-Diez, Mexican digital pioneer Miguel Chevalier, Spain-based emerging artists Laurent Martin ‘Lo’, Javier León Pérez and Maria García Ibañez.
The highlight of this year’s participation will be the vibrant works by the internationally renowned Franco-Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. Dedicating his life to the rigours of research in colours, lines and perception, Cruz-Diez is one of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. The artist is recognised as one of the founders of the Op-Art and Kinetic Art movements of the 1950s. New works from Physichromie, the artist’s most complex and celebrated series, will be at presented at the fair. Cruz-Diez began the series in 1959, using three-dimensional strips on a two-dimensional surface. Colours oscillate from one chromatic range to another, creating a kinetic experience in accordance to the viewers’ movement around the piece. The mathematically precise vertical bands harness the phenomena of colour reflection and interference to re-create mesmerising effects seen in nature.
His work has been well appreciated in Asia Pacific since 1988 when Physichromie Double Face was installed in the Olympic Park in South Korea. In 1990 the National Taiwan Museum made him part of their permanent collection. In 2001 the Spirale Virtuelle was installed in the Korean Folk village in Suwonsi. Cruz-Diez’ art is part of more than 60 major museum collections worldwide including MoMA, Tate Modern and Georges Pompidou. He has held multiple museum exhibitions, most notably the touring solo exhibition Circumstance and Ambiguity of Colour, across Asia in many national museums and leading galleries. The show was exhibited at Sang Sang Tok Tok Gallery in 2011 and to the great acclaim at The Jeonbuk Province Art Museum in 2012. Most recently, he also participated in Spatial Illumination – 9 Lights in 9 rooms at the Daelim Contemporary Art Museum. In addition, the artist executed numerous high profile public commissions and exhibitions in Australia, China, Japan, and Taiwan.
Whilst Cruz-Diez’ art betrays the fallacy of our vision to create a new mode of perception, Miguel Chevalier explores how the digital world offers a new way of seeing. Since 1982, his art has been dedicated to the exploration of technology. Chevalier is known internationally as one of the pioneers of virtual and digital art. He has created dozens of projects variously incorporating video projections, virtual reality, holographic imagery and other forms. He has produced exhibitions and installations for galleries, museums and public spaces around the world. He has been awarded a number of architecturally-based commissions. Chevalier generative fractal flower series will be presented at the fair. Virtual flowers evolve with the cycle of seasons never repeating themselves. Unusual shapes, amazing colours, other artificial paradises are created. Chevalier’s work has been selected by MOCA for a special project in conjunction with Art Taipei.
In contrast to Chevalier’s digital practice, Laurent Martin ‘Lo’ generates work out of an intimate and hands-on interaction with a single natural material, bamboo. Like Calder’s mobiles, the sculptures follow strict mathematical laws of movement and balance. His manipulation of the bamboo plants from solid canes to thin and articulating contours, creates mobile sculptures where the artwork consists of not only the bamboo itself, but also the intangible hollow space within and the shadows and silhouettes they project. Lo’s exquisite creations are well appreciated internationally as well as in the Asia Pacific region. Lo was recently invited by the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute to participate in the Bamboo Traces Contemporary International Bamboo Art and Craft Exhibition. This exhibition is a worldwide collaboration project, gathering artists and designers from many different countries and cultures, exploring bamboo, a traditional material in Asia, from a modern context.
In tune with Lo’s mobile bamboo sculptures will be the meticulous sculptural paper works by Spanish artist Javier León Pérez. In his stunning three-dimensional works, small elements of carefully cut Japanese paper overlay and interweave gracefully with each other. By repeating detailed processes, endlessly, fractal patterns emerged. Here the eyes are hypnotised by the flowing movement that entwines the macro and micro perspective together. These works have boundless interpretation, invoking associations to landscapes, tree roots or veins. In fact, this is because León Pérez’ extremely personal creative process follows the same structure as the underlying order of nature, as reflected in its organic forms. This concept has many parallels with the philosophical ideas of Li (理), and is also found in Neo-Confucian Chinese Philosophy.
Another rising Spanish artist, Maria García Ibañez, displays a simplicity of lines, purity and elegance that almost betrays the deep discourse and moral dilemmas that are embodied in the works of León Pérez. García Ibañez explores the hidden beauty beneath the elements, dissecting them and then reconstructing their essence and layers with a deeply feminine aesthetic.
