From September 13th to March 16th, the first and most important solo exhibition ever held in Italy dedicated to the great Argentine artist. The exhibition, produced by Opera Laboratori, features 70 works created over more than 60 years of Le Parc’s career.
Palazzo delle Papesse will reopen to the public on September 13th with the exhibition “Julio Le Parc. The Discovery of Perception. Works from 1958 to the Present.” Siena is ready to host the most significant solo exhibition of the great Argentine artist ever held in Italy, following his participation in the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966, where he received the prestigious Grand Prize for painting.
The exhibition, produced by Opera Laboratori with the support of Galleria Continua, has been curated by Marcella Beccaria in dialogue with Julio Le Parc and the artistic director of his studio, Yamil Le Parc, while the catalog and merchandising were curated by the publishing house Sillabe.
This is the first major event that the historic exhibition space, located in the heart of Siena, will host, allowing visitors not only to view the works but also to experience the Renaissance palace with its courtyard and terrace, which culminates in a spectacular panoramic view of Siena from the rooftop. Rich in history and the memory of distinguished guests, including Galileo Galilei, the ancient rooms of Palazzo delle Papesse provide the ideal setting for Le Parc’s work and his constant experimental attitude, which, in the artist’s own words, means “research, discoveries, risks, contradictions, encounters, rediscoveries, waiting, surprise, setbacks, progress, perspective.”
“With this first exhibition,” explains Beppe Costa, president of Opera Laboratori, “we want to trace a path of cultural rebirth that will bring international art exhibitions and events to the heart of Siena in a 15th-century building that has long been an important center for contemporary art.”
A perfect dialogue between the past and present, based on a dual play of contrasts and references between the geometry of Julio Le Parc’s works and the magnificent frescoes on the ceilings of Palazzo delle Papesse. Le Parc works with the idea of detachment between the artist and the artwork. He prefers to use geometric shapes to visually activate the surface of the artwork and engage viewers. “The first necessity,” he writes, “is to increase the distance between the artist and the artwork, removing not only any trace of manual craftsmanship (‘the artist’s painting touch’) but also traces of subjective composition.”
The Argentine artist, always engaged in social causes, does not want to conform even to chronology – indeed, the exhibition layout brings together works made in different years. A look at the sequence of some of the series and the themes that guided them helps to delve into the dense creative universe of the artist.
“Italy,” comments Yamil Le Parc, director of the South American artist’s studio, “has always had a considerable presence in Argentina, where it is the largest foreign community. It was time for him to return to Italy to continue influencing and inspiring today’s audience with his ability to challenge and transform our understanding of contemporary art. I hope this exhibition leaves a deep mark, not only on the citizens of Tuscany but also on the thousands of tourists who visit Siena every year in search of history and beauty.”
Endless color variations, shapes, and movements invade the rooms of the 15th-century palace, as in Ondes 139 série 47 n. 8 (1974) or Ondes Alternées à partir d’un thème de 1972 (1972-2018), where the works positively assert their power within the exhibition space. Acrylic colors follow movement, multiplying and transcending the borders of the canvas. “Looking at them”, clarifies the curator Marcella Beccaria, “means accessing a joyful universe in which perceptual experience takes center stage.”
At Palazzo delle Papesse, the concentric circles of @ Série 14 – 14 Permuté (1970-2020), and the trembling ones in Série 15 n. 8 (1971-2012) capture the gaze, inviting viewers to experiment with different degrees of distance, for example by moving closer and then farther away.
From the 1970s, Le Parc also explores the spectrum of 14 colors in a series of sculptures, the Ensemble volume-couleur, of which a significant selection from 1971-1975 is presented in the exhibition. These are wooden works painted in which the solid element rises on a metal rod mounted on a base. Despite their small size, when presented in a group, these works evoke a group of architectural models, almost as if they were projects that could be developed on a monumental scale, as public sculptures for the squares of future cities, anticipating his work on public sculptures in the 1980s.
An experimentation that began with colors in 1959. The Argentine artist uses pure colors as if they were a piece of a rainbow moving in the continuous search for new geometries that involve the viewer, placing them at the center of the scene.
A precursor to Kinetic Art and Op Art, throughout his career, visible along the exhibition path, Le Parc moved from black-and-white works created with ink on cardboard or carton to colored geometric shapes. He experimented with using various materials: metal, wood, canvas, plexiglass, light bulbs, lights, and motors.
His attention to color led him organically to work with light and movement. It was still in 1959, in the fertile climate of his early years in Paris, that Le Parc placed electric lights in small boxes and used prisms or plexiglass sheets to combine colored light beams. “The experiments with light and movement”, the artist wrote in 1971, “were part of my desire to move away from the notion of a fixed, stable, and final work”.
The exhibition features iconic works from this period, including historical examples such as Continuel lumière mobile (1963-2013), Continuel lumière boite n. 3 (1959-1965), and Continuel lumière avec quatre formes en contorsion (1966-2012). Each of these works explores in different ways the relationship between light and movement, provoking a variety of possible reactions from those who encounter them. This relentless research led the artist to experiment with the fourth dimension in his works, generating pieces capable of evoking an immersive experience for the viewer.
Among the most recent works is Sphere verte (2016), located at the entrance of Palazzo delle Papesse, which welcomes visitors with a large body suspended in space. An unstable geometry made of numerous green plexiglass tiles that reflect light, creating zones of light and shadow.
“If this exhibition of Le Parc at Palazzo delle Papesse is the largest ever held by the artist in Italy,” concludes the curator Marcella Beccaria, “it is also worth noting that an important precursor was his participation in the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966. Le Parc was invited to represent Argentina, and his presentation, which included a substantial number of works, was a huge success with the public. Photographs from the period show visitors interacting with the works, for example, climbing onto sculptures with springs or wearing large glasses that had horizontal slats instead of lenses.”
“Julio Le Parc. The Discovery of Perception. Works from 1958 to the Present,” organized in a free-flowing path over two floors that favors thematic rooms, collects over 70 works created in Paris, France, after the artist’s early days in Buenos Aires, Argentina, up to recent and new works. Over 60 years of activity, from black-and-white geometric works to kinetic-light sculptures, to iconic paintings, tell the uniqueness and vastness of a research aimed at stimulating perception and engaging the viewer.
