Invitation to another dimension, the universe of the Vega. This period translates Vasarely’s taste for constellations, planets, the spatial and cosmic universe. All his life, the artist was interested in technological and scientific progress and more particularly in the conquest of space. The Vega motif is treated here on an unusual medium: the tapestry made of woolen threads between 1974 and 1975 by the Aubusson factory, according to cartoons designed by the artist. This shows once again his desire to associate his art with craft techniques. The works of the period VEGA are the result of the research of the plastician on the deformation of the line associated with his work on the plastic unit.
Victor Vasarely, at the end of the black and white period, abandons the square to direct his research towards the use of the line. He does not abandon his previous preoccupations but the squares become rhombuses or irregular quadrilaterals, the circles turn into ovals and the composition swells into hemispheres to escape the plane. The geometric shapes swell and distort to become ellipses. Victor Vasarely seeks to evoke the elusive universe of galaxies, a pulsation, a biological mutation of the cell. Volumes emerging from a circle frame, we have the illusion of the third dimension. To amplify this optical phenomenon, Vasarely plays with tonal gradations, exploiting the visual principles of color and light. Thus, the light colors advance while the dark ones retreat.
The optical illusion of the immense sphere is the result of the artist’s research on the deformation of the line that he mixes with the elements of his plastic alphabet. The effect of expanded volume of the forms is reinforced by the colors in gradient which seems to make emerge the sphere of a halo of opacity.
VEGA-ANNEAUX, Victor Vasarely, 1969, 582×582 cm
Cell 6
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