Jesús Rafael Soto ”BORDE Y VIBRACION”. 1988

Oil on panel, with painted aluminium-bars and nylon thread. 102,5 × 102 × 23 cm (40 ⅜ × 40 ⅛ × 9 in.). Inscribed, titled, signed and dated in black brush on the reverse: HAUT ”BORDE Y VIBRACION“ SOTO 1988. Same place a label of Galería Theo, Madrid. [3021], Oil on panel, with painted aluminium-bars and nylon thread. 102,5 × 102 × 23 cm (40 ⅜ × 40 ⅛ × 9 in.). Inscribed, titled, signed and dated in black brush on the reverse: HAUT ”BORDE Y VIBRACION“ SOTO 1988. Same place a label of Galería Theo, Madrid. [3021], Galería Theo, Madrid / Galerie Schoeller, Düsseldorf / Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia, Galería Theo, Madrid / Galerie Schoeller, Düsseldorf / Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia, Soto. Munich, Galerie Hermanns, 1989 / Soto. Madrid, Galería Theo, 1990 / Jesús Rafael Soto. Bilder und Skulpturen 1959–2000. Berlin, Allianz-Versicherungs-AG, 2000, cat. no. 10, ill. Born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, in 1923, Jesús Rafael Soto is regarded as one of the leading figures of Kinetic Art. Fascinated by geometric abstraction in Europe, particularly the work of artists such as Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, he moved to Paris in 1950. There, he soon became acquainted with fellow artists including Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, Victor Vasarely and Yves Klein, as well as the legendary gallerists Iris Clert and Denise René. In his experimental works, which consistently placed the viewer’s interaction with the artwork at their centre, Soto explored questions of movement, space and time. In this respect, he also maintained close ties with the circle of ZERO artists. In 1959, Soto began developing his “Vibraciones” series, which he continued to expand over several decades through an ever-changing range of variations. For these works, he mounted slender metal rods on nylon threads in front of wooden panels painted with delicate linear patterns. The interplay between the moving rods and the linear structure of the background creates optical distortions that dissolve the boundaries between the static image and dynamic space. Our work “BORDE Y VIBRACIÓN” belongs to this series. For this piece, Soto mounted the metal rods in front of the lower quarter of a square wooden panel. The panel is divided into two white-primed areas, each set against a frame painted in two shades of red. In front of the lower section, characteristically marked with fine parallel lines as in the “Vibraciones” series, the metal rods appear to float. They are themselves painted in two colours, yellow at the centre and white at the outer ends. Air currents in the room, sometimes set in motion by the viewers themselves, cause these delicate metal rods to move in front of the parallel lines on the background. Combined with the colour composition of the rods and frame, as well as the optical contrast with the empty white rectangle above, this movement generates a vibration and dynamism that are at once subtle and immensely powerful. In the viewer’s eye, the interplay of the moving lines produces a moiré effect: the rods seem to shimmer, multiply and continually shift their position in space. This dynamism, which arises partly from the viewer’s interaction with the work and manifests itself fully only through individual perception, was a phenomenon that profoundly fascinated Soto and which he explored in ever-new ways. His work also inspired numerous fellow artists, including Heinz Mack, who wrote in the catalogue for the 1971 exhibition at Galerie Denise René Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf: “no artist has given the line this optical movement that Soto calls ‘vibration’. vibration is simply another name for Soto. the line on the surface, the surface made of lines, the line in space, space made of lines, the lines between the lines, the space between the lines, a thousand lines, one line, the viewer before the line, the viewer within the space of lines, […] all of this is vibration.” ES

Estimate:£66,876

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