JULIO LEPARC
b. 1928
Mendoza, Argentina
“Movement was the ideal solution… and when I saw that light could offer me a solution and at the same time enable me to continue with my investigations, I concentrated on that theme.”
—Julio Le Parc
Julio Le Parc was born in Mendoza in 1928, but currently lives and works in Cachan, France. He is an Argentine artist associated with Op Art and Kinetic Art. Le Parc attended the School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, where he formed the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visual (GRAV), along with Francisco Sobrino, François Morellet, and Yvaral (Jean Pierre Vasarely), among others.
This group, which was active in Paris in the 1960s, was committed to creating collaborative works and merging individual artistic endeavors into collective, anonymous activity, based around events called Labyrinths. These events focused on using artificial light and mechanical movement to explore optical effects. Also during this time, he conducted his own experiments with light, creating his first mobiles from small pieces of Plexiglas, which were connected and suspended from the ceiling. He also created light-based works, using projectors to play with rhythms of light and sound. In 1966, he received the Grand Prize in Painting at the 33rd Venice Biennale.
Although he became less active in the 1970s, Le Parc continued to develop his “Modulaciones” (Modulations), airbrushed works executed in gray, black, and white, as well as his Alchemy series. He has had numerous retrospectives at important institutions in Havana, Düsseldorf, Montevideo, Caracas, Asunción, Mexico City, Stockholm, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, Santiago de Chile, and Porto Alegre. Recent solo exhibitions have included shows at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2013, the Casa Daros in Rio de Janeiro in 2014, and the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires in 2014.