Thematic
path
GROUND FLOOR
By detaching movement from figurative representation, Kinetic Art invites us to perceive not only surrounding space but also the vital, invisible forces of nature. Takis explores electromagnetic tensions, while the mobiles of Alexander Calder, Susumu Shingu and Xavier Veilhan move with the air.
1st floor
Some artists interact with nature to set their works in motion; others draw from nature’s growth patterns. Putting his “Ponctuations” in movement, Pol Bury seems to be inspired by slow vegetal growth. Laurent Debraux and Emmanuel Lagarrigue link with nature in a hypnotic way, either by movement or by sound. Other artists derive formulae from natural structures poetic in Laurent Pernot, activist in Andrea Bowers, or pseudo-mathematical, with
the Fibonacci series as interpreted by Carsten Höller.
Jesús Rafael Soto, Esfera theospacio
2003 - Plexiglas, métal peint
53 x 34 x 40 cm - Collection privée
© Jesús Rafael Soto, ADAGP, Paris – 2023
1st floor
Pushing abstraction to the extreme, Minimalist artists like Dan Flavin, or G.R.A.V. artists like François Morellet, purify their artworks, using luminous lines to reveal spatial relationships. A young generation of artists takes inspiration from their environmental context. Philippe Parreno’s marquise and Jenny Holzer’s illuminated signs recall city lightscapes.
Jean-Michel Othoniel,
Precious Stonewall - 2020 - Verre indien miroité bleu aquamarine, bois
33 x 32 x 22 cm - Collection de l’artiste Photo © Othoniel Studio © Jean-Michel Othoniel, ADAGP, Paris – 2023
2nd floor
Dans l’art optique - ou Op’Art - ce sont nos yeux qui sont les moteurs des effets optiques proposés par les artistes. Les œuvres de Grazia Varisco, Nino Calos, Martha Boto et Hugo Demarco semblent se déployer temporellement, dans une perpétuelle mutation géométrique. D’autres jouent avec les volumes, tel Victor Vasarely qui décompose les couleurs et les trames, ou Iván Navarro et Chul-Hyun Ahn qui nous aspirent dans des profondeurs de miroirs et de néons.
Yaacov Agam, Carré bleu - 1977
Huile sur relief, aluminium - 60 x 60 cm
Collection privée - Photo © Tim Perceval
Susumu Shingu, Night Flight - 2012
Acier inoxydable, aluminium, polyester
172 x 132 x 100 cm - Edition de 5
Courtesy Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris-Lisbonne
Ground floor
As a part of the Movement and Light exhibition, the Villa Datris Foundation celebrates the centenary of Jesús Rafael Soto’s birth. We pay tribute to this major Venezuelan artist by presenting a Pénétrable BBL bleu in our gardens and invite the public to wander in this monumental, interactive sculpture. Viewers will also have the opportunity to experience 5 artworks representative of the artist’s practice.
François Morellet, 2+4 angles droits n°3
2012 - Acrylique sur toile et tubes néons blancs - 160 x 150 x 150 cm - Edition 3/3 Collection privée - Photo © Tim Perceval
© François Morellet, ADAGP, Paris - 2023
1st floor
The play of reflections troubles our perception of reality in order to better reveal it. The mirror works of Haegue Yang, Jeppe Hein, Regine Schumann and Keith Sonnier fracture space and/or color it, while the absence of reflection in the work of Raphael Hefti may be unsettling. Jean-Michel Othoniel show that transparency can become color. With electric light, artists explore the science of color. Tatsuo Miyajima plays with synesthesia, a sensory ability that leads some people to associate colors with letters and numbers. Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves composes with supernovae data, Laddie John Dill goes in search of what appears to be a colored genome, while Pe Lang and Laurent Baude try to create new mixtures of colors.
Kinetic light effects are not limited to reflections and colored bulbs. Some artists explore the effects of light on materials. Elias Crespin dissolves color by mechanics; Carlos Cruz-Diez superposes hues with luminous rays traversing his sculptures. The materials of Philippe Decrauzat create iridescence, surface “decompositions” of light, while Miguel Chevalier explores moiré patterns.
Chul-Hyun AHN, Forked 16 - 2010
Contre plaqué, miroir, lumière, métal, acrylique
53 x 53 x 10 cm - Collection Fondation Villa Datris
Photo © Bertrand Michau
2nd floor
Since the 1960s, Victor Vasarely and Marina Apollonio have used the contrast between black and white to create “afterimages” the persistence of a retinal image after the stimulus disappears a phenomenon that seems to animate and vibrate simple geometric forms.
Garden floor
The apparent simplicity of Kinetic works is deceptive. Squares and circles are often used to multiply or distort, or to plunge us into movement, as we see in the works of Marina Apollonio and Francisco Sobrino, or to show us depth in Antonio Asis and Joël Stein. Color movement is also key in Yaacov Agam, Ueli Gantner, Cesar Andrade, Siegfried Kreitner, Luis Tomasello and Jaildo Marinho as is light in Angela Bulloch. With Dominique Pétrin, color becomes a camouflage strategy, like a QR code of data, while with Elias Crespin, colors immerse us in states of contemplation and joy.
