17 May 2017

Carlos Cruz-Diez: Mastering Colour

Puerta Roja

Reviewed by Andy Gambrell

In celebration of Le French May annual arts festival, Adriana Alvarez-Nichol organized "Mastering Colour," an exhibition of recent works by Carlos Cruz-Diez at Puerta Roja. The pieces on display present sensual optical effects through the artist's deft manipulation of parallel vertical bands in print, transparency, relief, and projection. Cruz-Diez's interactive compositions of shimmering and ever-changing color are inviting, and manifest a spirit of expertise without pretense.

The 93-year-old master's practice is at once surprisingly contemporary and refreshingly analog. The necessity of viewing the work directly from observation is a welcome respite from the Instagrammable. Cruz-Diez's colors primarily exist in the eye and mind, as his compositions depend upon a gamut of optical strategies including simultaneous contrast, successive contrast, and mixtures that rearrange by parallax. "Mastering Colour" presents the ease and power of form born of visual function.