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Julio Le Parc (Mendoza, 1928)
“As an artist, I put myself aside and I create proposals where the other, in this case the viewer, can contribute with a part of their personality, their way of seeing, reacting and reflecting.”
A well-known international figure, Le Parc´s most recognizable works are large-scale installations made up of light, reflective surfaces and moving parts that he developed since the 60s, after his time in the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV) [Visual Art Research Group], of which he was a founding member. With the firm determination to make art that appealed to the general public, they carried out experiments like Une journée dans la rue (1966) [A day on the street], where participative objects were placed in different locations throughout the city of Paris. During the revolts of May 1968, he was also part of the Atelier Populaire [Popular Workshop], a group of artists who anonymously designed and printed street signs in support of the workers' demands. From the mid-seventies, he painted his Modulaciones [Modulations] in shades of grey and gradients of color, and later worked on the series Alquimias [Alchemies].
The path to these findings started in 1958, when after finishing his studies in the Fine Arts School in Buenos Aires, he was awarded a scholarship to settle in Paris. There, he met some of the biggest names in Op Art, and began his own quest to achieve a form of art that could engage the viewer in a genuine way. For it, he devised a method based on the execution of sequential monochromatic patterns: simple, repeated geometric modules, which, being combined in different ways, produced complex relations, and allowed him to obtain optical effects that suggested the illusion of movement. These are the works featured in lalana´s designs.