In this alveolus, the volumes are moving and unstable. The forms are juxtaposed by plates of colors posed in flat tints. The reliefs are perceived in incessant transformations, sometimes in hollow, sometimes in relief. This hesitation of the eye which alternates between the perception of a volume or a hollow, creates the movement. This ambiguity is accentuated by the contribution of colored scales: the plane is space and space is plane. The viewer is plunged into a universe where he loses all his usual reference points. The gaze perceives what Vasarely calls a “perpetuum mobile en trompe-l’oeil”.
This work is representative of this game of unstable volumes. The small cube cumulates two functions: If it is him that one fixes while looking at the work, it is as in levitation. On the other hand, as soon as the eye focuses on the medium cube, it is as if the smallest one is digging into it. In spite of the fact that no mathematical proportion is really respected for that, the magic of the kinetism operates and the small cube is then swallowed by the medium by the only chromatic play.
AXO, Victor Vasarely, 1968, 522×522 cm
Cell 7
Zoom on AXO