Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

Jesús Rafael Soto was a Venezuelan Op and Kinetic artist whose artistic presence is deeply embedded in global art history. In Caracas, he was at the centre of the modern art scene with other important artists such as Omar Carreño, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Mercedes Pardo and Alejandro Otero, all of whom attended La Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Artes Aplicadas (Plastic and Applied Arts School). After graduating in 1947, Soto moved to Paris on a grant, where he connected with the Nouveau Réalistes (New Realists), and with Yaacov Agam, Jean Tinguely, and Victor Vasarely.

Soto’s name was permanently etched into the Western canon in 1955 with his participation in the ground-breaking group exhibition “Le mouvement (The Movement),” which thrust Kinetic art onto the global centre stage. The exhibition was held by Galerie Denise René and included the works of Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Yaacov Agam, Pol Bury, Jesús Rafael Soto, Jean Tinguely, and Victor Vasarely. At the time of the exhibition, Vasarely said, “We are at the beginning of a great era. The era has now begun in which sculptural projections on two- and three-dimensional screens are possible, both day and night.”

By the 1960s, Soto expanded his practice to include the making of linear, kinetic constructions that embodied the movement’s most important elements of motion, space, and time. The viewer’s participation was vital to each of these artworks. “Soto’s sculptures and environments often play with the juxtaposition of solid and void, deliberately unsettling the act of viewing by blurring the distinction between reality and illusion.” This metal and plexiglass sculpture wonderfully encapsulates the artist’s core tenets.

In 1973, Jesús Soto opened the Museo de arte moderno in his hometown of Ciudad de Bolívar, which houses a substantial collection of the artist’s work, as well as those who influenced him. His work can also be found in the permanent collections of major institutions, such as Tate (London), Museum Ludwig (Germany), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Roma) and MoMA (New York).

"We thank Emma Landis, Toronto-based art consultant and art historian, for contributing this essay."