Jesús-Rafael Soto

Jesús-Rafael Soto was born in Ciudad Bolivar (Venezuela) in 1922. He was a guitarist but also enrolled in courses at the Fine Arts of Caracas and taught for a while in Maracaïbo. He settled in Paris in 1950 and attended the conferences of the Atelier d'Art Abstrait (Jean Dewasne, Edgard Pillet). In 1952, he collaborated on the "Arts Integration Project" at the Central University of Venezuela, alongside artists such as Otero, Calder, Fernand Léger, Hans Arp, Pevsner ou Henri Laurens. This project aimed at integrating avant-garde art into architecture. With - among others - Vasarely, Agam or Jean Tinguely, Jesús-Rafael Soto he participated in the exhibition Le Mouvement at the Denise René Gallery (Paris), exploring the problems of perception of the abstract-constructivist system.
The artist developed a kinetic vocabulary through works that produce optical vibrations, playing on the modification of spaces and the perception of the viewer, finally analyzing the problem of the spectator's involvement in the work itself. He created his first Vibraciones in 1958, and his Pénétrables in the late 1960s. Soto had important public commissions (Unesco in Paris, Caracas, etc.) and his work is present in prestigious museums. An emblematic artist of Op Art and Kinetic Art movements, Jesús-Rafael Soto passed away in Paris in 2005.