Julio Le Parc (b. 1928)

Galerie Denise René, Paris
Galleria Levi, Milan
Galleria d'Arte Moderna MTM, Rome

This work was painted in a very careful fashion using a dull pigment that is completely matte and absorbent. Very slight staining and a few isolated spots of mild discoloration have occurred in the purple colors, but all of the other colors are very healthy. Under ultraviolet light, one can see a few small retouches in the purples and mauves in the lower right and lower center left. The paint layer is unretouched and in very good condition throughout the remainder of the picture. The work is well stretched and shows no restoration on the reverse. There are a few areas where a small amount of mild cracking has developed, but this is neither unsightly nor an indication of any impending instability. (This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.)
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I started to do research on color in 1959. Avoiding colorism, I applied the same technique to the color and the form. When I was working with colors it wasn’t to achieve a "blue hot" painting etc...I started to use not one color but all of them. I wanted them to be pure, not spoiled by black and white. I forbid myself to use any color I hadn't chosen from the start. The limited 14 colors seemed to resume all the possible variations of chromatic mixtures.

From this scale of 14 colors, I started to make simple mixtures from one or two shades going horizontally, vertically and in diagonal; on top of those 4 shades, I added some covering the entire surface then I added some new shades: 4 of them. Those mixtures born from a simple and strict system were multiplied. I was working on tempera on cardboard in small format and on transparent plastic. This last technique allowed me to obtain all kind of permutations. Later I invented a small machine with transparent tapes where all my shades of colors could appear. Switching them, I could have an incredible choice of mixture.

I was impressed by the quantity of the possibilities included in each program. I was keen imagining all the variations succeeding in time and the probabilities were leading me to a new phenomenon: the limitless duration. Each painting which was made with any combinations was a special moment with ever-changing movement and colors.

After that, around the end of 1959, I started to imagine mechanisms to bring out all this potential variations. The real movement, the multiplication of images, the transparency, the coloring, the space, the light, appeared in my research. All the research I started 12 years ago has been reviewed, blown up and organized so they have a more visual form today.

 

Atelier Le Parc, 2014