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The exhibition
Drawing on a rich collection of modern and contemporary art in which abstraction features prominently, the Musée d’arts de Nantes and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (United States) are putting on an unprecedented exhibition presenting the historical, theoretical, and formal connections between Op art and video and computer art, from the 1960s to the present day.
In the 1960s, Op art spread throughout art and popular culture, relayed by artists such as Victor Vasarely, Yaacov Agam, and Jesús Rafael Soto. Op artists focus on the visitor’s experience of the artwork, playing with optical effects to distort the viewer’s perception.
The rise of IT and communication technology piqued the Op artists’ curiosity, while IT engineers began to see the artistic potential their tools had to offer. Both groups began experimenting and exploring the creative capacity of these new tools and languages. The result: programmed repetition, binarity, pixels, and moiré effects – motifs artists still use in their compositions today.With over 80 paintings, plotter drawings, sculptures, videos, and digital installations, this exhibition reveals the way Op art and new media have influenced one another, from the emergence of the pioneers of the 1960s to more contemporary digital artists.
LE LABO: it’s your turn to play!
If you want to really understand something, nothing beats a hands-on experience! The museum has designed a space at the centre of the exhibition where young and old alike can come and try their hand at the programmed creativity, optical illusions, and digital concepts used by the artists on show in the exhibition.
Le Labo provides a boundless visual, enlightening, hands-on experience!
An exhibition in five parts
1- Introduction: Op art and kinetic art
The selected artworks demonstrate the way these artists embraced the innovations of their time early on (optical experimentation, new materials), as well as the historical and aesthetic parallels between their work and the beginnings of video art.
2- Programmed repetition
This section shows how repetition is used as a creative process in Optical artworks. These pieces are the result of a programme, created in advance.
3- Binarity
This section gives a glimpse into binary aesthetic effects, juxtaposing optical black and white and digital black and white, from the first computer-modelled images and plotter drawings to the lines of code created by digital artists such as Ryoji Ikeda.
4- 3D
This section delves into the historical and formal connections between Op art and new media artforms from a twofold perspective: human depth perception and 3D modelling. Op art, with its focus on binocular vision, soon began to question our optical and mental potential.
Today, several digital artists working with 3D animation still make use of optical illusions.
5 – Pixels
A digital image is a compressed version of an image, reduced to a multitude of luminous dots (pixels) which enable it to be displayed on a screen. This pixelized orthonormal grid provided a limitless playground for many artists, and continues to inspire to this day.
Commissariat de l’exposition : Tina Rivers Ryan, rédactrice en chef d’Artforum, ancienne conservatrice du Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Commissariat de l’exposition à Nantes : Salomé Van Eynde, chargée d’expositions au Musée d’arts de Nantes
Electric Op. De l’art optique à l’art numérique est une exposition co-organisée par le Buffalo AKG Art Museum et le Musée d’arts de Nantes. Elle est présentée au Buffalo AKG Art Museum du 27 septembre 2024 au 3 février 2025.
L’exposition bénéficie du soutien de FRench American Museum Exchange (FRAME) que le musée remercie chaleureusement.
Le Musée d’arts de Nantes remercie son mécène Banque Palatine pour le soutien financier apporté à l’exposition, ainsi que le Fonds Métropolitain pour la Culture.
Le musée remercie chaleureusement ses partenaires médias qui, par leur soutien, participent activement à la découverte de l’exposition par le public et la fréquentation de celle-ci.
Artistes : Yoshiyuki Abe, Yaacov Agam, Josef Albers, Cory Arcangel, Stephen Beck, Charles Bézie, Computer Technique Group, Martha Boto, Angela Bulloch, Bernard Caillaud, Nicolas Chardon, Analivia Cordeiro, Douglas Coupland, Larry Cuba, Hans Dehlinger, Jean-François Dubreuil, Karl Gerstner, Aldo Giorgini, Peter Halley, Frederick Hammersley, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Gary Hill, Hervé Huitric & Monique Nahas, Ryoji Ikeda, JODI, LIA, LoVid, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Hiroshi Kawano, William J. Kolomyjec, Leroy Lamis, Julio Le Parc, Eduardo Mac Entyre, Heinz Mack, Jean-Claude Marquette, Vera Molnár, Manfred Mohr, François Morellet, Rhea Myers, Frieder Nake, Georg Nees, Aurélie Nemours, A. Michael Noll, Casey Reas, Oscar Reutersvärd, Bridget Riley, Kristen Roos, Rafaël Rozendaal, Nicolas Schöffer, Lillian F. Schwartz, Michel Seuphor, Francisco Sobrino, Jesús Rafael Soto, Laura Splan, Jen Stark, Lloyd Sumner, Zdeněk Sýkora, Luis Tomasello, Stan Vanderbeek, Livinus et Jeep van de Bundt, Victor Vasarely , Steina et Woody Vasulka, Leo Villareal , Gerhard von Graevenitz, Marius Watz , John Whitney, Yvaral, Edward Zajec, Anton Zöttl
Légende et crédits
François Morellet, Répartition aléatoire de 20% de carrés, superposée 5 fois en pivotant au centre, 1970. Nantes, Musée d’arts de Nantes © Musée d’arts de Nantes, photo. : C. Clos © Adagp, Paris, 2025
Leo Villareal, Red Life, 1999. Buffalo AKG Art Museum. Don de Zoë and Joel Dictrow, 2007 © Leo Villareal. Photo : Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum