Today, the artistic director of the Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra, Guillermo Cervera, dedicates his speech to one of the most recognised artists of the 20th century, Victor Vasarely, through his work “Feny“, 1973, which is part of the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza’s collection.
Victor Vasarely, Hungarian artist recognized as the father of Op art, was born in 1906 and died in Paris in 1997. Having begun his medical studies in his home country, he abandoned them after two years to turn to the artistic world, affirming his taste for the Bauhaus. In 1930, he moved to Paris with his wife and took his first steps into the world of advertising as a graphic designer. This creative environment allowed him to develop his style, which tended more and more towards geometric abstraction.
Op art, or optical art, is an international artistic trend that emerged in the 1960s. As a movement that initially does not promotes conceptual or psychological meaning, it is the spectator’s body itself that constitutes the centre of the artistic dialogue in front of this art that does not solicit the mind, but the sensation.
The work is no longer simply looked at but becomes the medium of physical experience through optical games. Vasarely, as the father and master of the movement, makes the eye of the spectator the sole motor of interpretation and the body the only link of his production.
Between art and science, the artist uses geometric forms and a skilfully placed chromatic palette to give an impression of movement, vibration, and light, revealing the limits of vision. This new aesthetic interpretation, which plays with the eye of the audience that perceives, and the brain that interprets, converts Victor Vasarely as one of the referents of the world of contemporary art history.
