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Homage to the Square
(18.October 2009 - 11. April 2010)
François Morellet (17.05. - 27.09.2009)
MUSEUM RITTER on tour
(28. May 2009 - 25. June 2009)
Gastspiel
(26.10.08 - 26.04.09)
Alighiero Boetti
(26.10.08 - 26.04.09)
Werner Bauer
(18.05.08 - 28.09.08)
Bildertausch 3
(18.05.08 - 28.09.08)
New Friends
(28.10.07 - 20.04.08)
Geneviève Claisse
(28.10.2007 - 20.04.08)
Bildertausch 2
(06.05. - 30.09.2007)
George Pusenkoff
(06.05. - 30.09.2007)
Bewegung im Quadrat
(22.10.2006 - 15.04.2007)
Davide Boriani
Waltraut Cooper
Carlos Cruz-Diez
Gerhard von Graevenitz
Dieter Jung
Victor Vasarely
Mader|Stublic|Wiermann
Vera Molnar
Bridget Riley
Sabine Laidig
Sabine Straub
Jean Tinguely
Vadim Kosmatschof
Marcello Morandini
(21.05. - 03.10.2006)
Bildertausch 1
(21.05. - 03.10.2006)
SQUARE
(18.09.2005 - 23.04.2006)
Victor Vasarely
 
1908 born in Pécs (H)
1997 died in Paris
 
Katolar, 1973
Acrylic on canvas
100 x 100 cm
(c) VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006/2007
The seemingly elastic tracery of lines in this painting result in the manifestation of four regularly arranged spherical forms that seem to jump out at the viewer. Victor Vasarely, the most
celebrated of the Op Art artists, achieves this effect by a perspectival enlargement of the geometrical microforms in the reticular structure, and by systematically deforming them according to mathematical laws. Using foreshortened lines, obtuse angles or angles verging on the acute, and circular forms transforming progressively into ovals, the artist has shaped the picture space and lent it a pulsating three-dimensional effect. And further possibilities from the world of illusionism are used to the full in order to suggest three-dimensionality in paint: the chromatic interplay of successively shaded reds and blues opens up the virtual space in perfect analogy to the formal structures of the composition.

Taking a basic geometrical vocabulary as his starting point, Victor Vasarely created from the 1950s onward abstract compositions involving a visual sense of depth. At the same time his aesthetics subscribed fully to the tradition of Geometrical Constructive Art, which he enriched by new visual experiences. As one of the first ever artists in this field, he introduced the illusionist depiction of three or more dimensions, as well as the factor of movement, into Abstract Geometrical Painting. The optical illusion and the kinetic aspect of his works are brought about purely by the way they stimulate the retina, which is »set in vibration«, as it were. The outcome is the baffling
impression of stereometric bodies that loom from and fall back into the picture surface.
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