About the artist:

Julio Le Parc is an Argentina-born artist who focuses on both modern op art and kinetic art. Le Parc attended the School of Fine Arts in Argentina. A founding member of Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV) and award-winning artworks, he is a significant figure in Argentine modern art. He was bestowed the Konex Award from Argentina in 1982 and 2022.

Julio Le Parc was born into a family of limited economic means. At age thirteen he moved with his mother and brothers to Buenos Aires. While there he attended the School of Fine Arts and showed growing interest in artistic avant-garde movement in Argentina.

A precursor of Kinetic Art and Op Art, founding member of Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel and recipient of the Grand Prize for Painting at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966, Julio Le Parc is a major figure in modern art history. The socially conscious artist was expelled from France in May 1968, after participating in the Atelier Populaire and its protests against major institutions.

He currently lives and works in Cachan, France.

Julio Le Parc found an interest in art at the age of thirteen when it was evident that, while he was a mediocre student, he was exceptional at sketching portraits and illustration cards. His environment, mainly being the School of Fine Arts significantly influenced the early part of his career. While there he attended night classes while working full-time. Le Parc took a special interest in the avant-garde artistic movements in Argentina: Movement of Arte Concreto Invencion. After attending the School for four and a half years he decided to leave the school and the area. He decides to go travel the country, not speaking to his family for eight years. He later returns to the Academy of Fine Arts, where he takes an active role in student movement groups. Julio Le Parc graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts with Luis Wells and Rogelio Polesello. After returning, in 1958 Le Parc received a grant from the French Cultural Service to go to Paris, France. Much of his early career was committed to painting, engraving and creating monotypes. However, in 1959 Le Parc begins his experimentation with image produced by light multiplied by layers of planes of Plexiglas. Le Parc participated in his first exhibition, Bienal de Sáo Paulo in Sáo Paulo, Brazil in 1957.

Upon arriving in Paris in 1958 he connected with Jesús Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez who were already in Paris. There they met Victor Vasarely, Georges Vantongerloo, Morellet, and Denise René, whom they became friends with. René, a French art dealer, was committed to the promotion of abstract art, and later helped launch kineticism. Upon building relationships with these fellow artists and moving permanently to Paris, Le Parc began to paint what came to be known as Surfaces Sequences. These are works in which the progression of forms with slight variations create illusions of rhythmic movements when completed. In 1960 the GRAV group was established with the collective strategy to delegate the creative act to the viewer. The group advocated for art to play a wider and more active role in society.

In 1966, Le Parc won the Grand Prize in Painting at the 33rd Biennale di Venezia, Venice. He had been living in Paris for eight years at the time of receiving the award. By this time, Le Parc had invested himself in experiments with light. Le Parc had personal experiences with light and mobiles in a translucid cube, as well as an animated piece of light projected on ceilings, walls and the floor. He was also experimenting with light on a reflecting cylinder.

A defender of human rights, he fought against dictatorship in Latin America. In 1972 he refused to hold a retrospective exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, after flipping a coin to make the decision.

Le Parc has continued his use of light and kinetics. However, "in the 1970s, Le Parc's artistic activities became less frequent, to the degree that his work almost went unnoticed in the international arena for several decades". Nonetheless, with a renewed interest in using light as a medium, Le Parc's work is being brought to the attention of a wider public.

In 2004 he produced with Yvonne Argenterio in the Elettrofiamma workshops, Italy, a series of sculptures (Torsions) presented at the event "Verso la Luce", in the Castle of Boldeniga (Brescia, Italy). The monumental sculpture "Verso la Luce" is still visible in the castle garden. He received a one-man show at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2013. He is socially committed to immersive art.