August 2023

PRESS RELEASE

As part of the reconstitution of its dissipated heritage, 
the Vasarely Foundation welcomes the return 
         of two major original works

Presented at the Vasarely Didactic Museum in Gordes from 1970 to 1996, these two original works were part of the inalienable donations made by Victor Vasarely and his wife Claire to the Vasarely Foundation and which were intended to constitute the institution’s collection.  
In 1995, when one of Victor Vasarely’s daughters-in-law, Mrs Michèle Taburno (second wife of Jean-Pierre Vasarely known as Yvaral), was President of the Foundation, an arbitration procedure was decided and led to the Vasarely Foundation being fraudulently deprived of almost all of its works, to the benefit of the President at the time, but also of the artist’s two sons and a lawyer, Mr Yann Streiff, who has since been struck off the Paris Bar.

After a long legal battle, this fraudulent arbitration was annulled by the Paris Court of Appeal in 2014 (a decision confirmed by the Court of Cassation in 2015), with the dispersed inalienable works all destined to return to the Vasarely Foundation’s heritage.
It is within this framework that the two works Hoang and Hommage à Deyrolle have just been reintegrated into the Foundation’s heritage. 

Informed of their museum origin, their owners wished to return them to the Institution through the ADER auction house.
The Foundation thanks them warmly.
For several years now, the Vasarely Foundation has been fighting for the return of its so-called “arbitration works” (around 400).  
Recently, on the initiative of the French and American judicial authorities, around one hundred of the Foundation’s works were seized from the Puerto Rican home of Madame Taburno.
The Foundation hopes that all these works will be returned to France very soon.

In the meantime, it is delighted to note that collectors are taking the measure of the court rulings and returning to the Vasarely Foundation, which was recognised as a public utility in 1971 and a Museum of France in 2020, the works that make up its heritage.
 

Aix-en-Provence, July 13, 2023
 

Pierre Vasarely
Chairman of the Vasarely Foundation

VASARELY AVANT L’OP

European abstraction 1945 – 1955
until 15 October

Vasarely avant l’op is organised thanks to the partnership initiated five years ago with the Centre Pompidou. 

Following “La révolution permanente” in 2019, “Sud-Est, le constructivisme en héritage”, “Europe de l’Est et Amérique du Sud” in 2020-2021 and “Modernités cosmiques” in 2022, “Vasarely avant l’Op, une abstraction européenne, 1945-1955” is dedicated to a selection of 35 major works from the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Musée départemental Matisse, the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, the Hartung-Bergman Foundation, the Marta Pan Foundation, the Denise René Gallery and private collections.

Poliakoff had been living in Paris since 1924, and just before the war he became friends with Kandinsky (who declared: “For the future, I’m betting on Poliakoff”), the Delaunays and Otto Freundlich, whose influence on his art was to prove decisive. In 1945, the gallery L’Esquisse (Paris) organised the first exhibition of his abstract paintings. Playing guitar in cabarets for a living, in 1946 he took part in two of the five exhibitions that Domela programmed in his Centre de recherches in the rue Cujas. The same year, he exhibited at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. In 1947 the Denise René gallery presented him in a group exhibition and he was awarded the Kandinsky prize.

Extract from the exhibition catalogue, 60 pages
Texts by Michel Gauthier and Domitille d’Orgeval
Fage éditions, price: €18

Serge Poliakoff, Sans titre, 1952. Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art Moderne-Centre de création industrielle.
© Adagp Paris, 2023 © Centre Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI

CURRENTLY AT THE FOUNDATION

CHROMOSATURATION
CARLOS CRUZ-DIEZ
until 17 September 

To mark the centenary of the birth of Carlos Cruz-Diez, come and discover “Chromosaturation”, a captivating installation on the forecourt of the Foundation. Immerse yourself in three monochrome colour chambers.

VARIATIONS IN VARIATIONS
DAMIEN BÉNÉTEAU
until 17 September 

Explore Damien Bénéteau’s atrium, an immersive experience that fuses movement, volume and light, revealing the invisible forces of our universe and offering a profound reflection on time. 

RYTHMUS 800 – VERA RHÖM 
Since 2019, in the park of the Foundation

To mark the centenary of the birth of Carlos Cruz-Diez, come and discover “Chromosaturation”, a captivating installation on the forecourt of the Foundation. Immerse yourself in three monochrome colour chambers.

VASARELY PLASTICIEN
Semi-permanent exhibition, since 2018

Explore Damien Bénéteau’s atrium, an immersive experience that fuses movement, volume and light, revealing the invisible forces of our universe and offering a profound reflection on time. 

The summer workshops continue at the Fondation Vasarely, where you can plunge into the fascinating world of op art.  Let your artistic curiosity blossom! Join us for a creative and inspiring holiday, where art becomes a source of wonder for everyone!

As part of our temporary exhibition “Vasarely avant l’Op”, we invite you to take part in our workshops specially designed for budding young artists aged 3 to 12. Our enthusiastic cultural mediators will be delighted to guide young and old alike in discovering the world of Vasarely, as well as his contemporaries such as Auguste Herbin, Hans Hartung and Simone Boisecq.

FANTASTIC ANIMALS

WORKSHOP: MY EXPLODED PAINTING 

OP-TOUR 

The Foundation is continuing its online sale of 10 signed and numbered original silkscreen prints by Victor Vasarely.

By participating in this online sale, you will be supporting our educational programme.

Each silkscreen comes with a certificate of authenticity, guaranteeing its provenance and authenticity.

Detail from Hat Leg (blue background), silkscreen on velin d’Arches, 85×77 cm, 1972

THE DYNAMIC EYE, BEYOND OPTICAL AND KINETIC ART
Atkinson Museum, Porto, Portugal, Tate Gallery collection     
until September 30th 

Dive into a fascinating era in the 1950s and 1960s, when many artists explored new avenues by integrating mathematics, scientific research and colour theory into their creations. Among these visionaries, Victor Vasarely emerged as one of the central figures of Optical and Kinetic Art.

This exhibition revisits Optical and Kinetic Art from a global perspective. It highlights artists such as Victor Vasarely, Alexander Calder and Frank Stella, who played a central role in these movements, as well as their predecessors and the contemporary artists who drew inspiration from them. Immerse yourself in this captivating journey where art meets science, offering unique and spellbinding visual perspectives.

VASARELY, FROM PROGRAMMATIC ART TO DIGITAL ART

Espace Lympia, Nice
until 22 October

Among Vasarely’s wide range of works, this exhibition presents a collection of studies, paintings and multiples that testify to his unfailing desire to produce and share art for an ever-growing number of people. At the time of the first computers, he proposed his Plastic Alphabet inherited from the Bauhaus, patented in 1959, combining simple shapes with primary colours and binary circle/square geometry to develop a plastic language based on algorithms. His research prefigured what would later be known as Computer Art, as well as technologies such as augmented reality and 4D, now part of our everyday lives, applied to cinema, virtual games and art. The Fondation Vasarely and Renault Group are lending a number of works.

VASARELY, 
LE SOLFÈGE PLASTIQUE

Chapelle de l’Observance, Draguignan 
until 17 September

From Saturday 29 April to Sunday 17 September, the Chapelle de l’Observance will be hosting the exhibition Vasarely, le solfège plastique, the creative process of the father of Op’art.

This new exhibition, curated by Robert Jourdan and Camille Bernard Schreiber, is a tribute to Victor Vasarely, the emblematic artist of the 1960s and 1970s, a renowned visual artist and the father of kinetic art or optical art known as Op’art.

MOVEMENT AND LIGHT

Villa Datris, L’isle-sur-la-Sorgue
until November 1st

Movement and Light, the exhibition at Villa Datris, explores works of kinetic art from the original movement of the 1950s, as well as new generations of artists.

Light is also given pride of place in the design of the 81 works on display (including 3 by Vasarely), created by 60 emerging and established French and international artists. Together, they create a hypnotic, luminous visual experience for visitors. Come and discover this unique exhibition in the magnificent Villa Datris.

VASARELY & AKATRE GRAPHIC DIALOGUES

L’Essentiel, Cucuron
until September 1st

Les dialogues graphiques Vasarely & Akatre is an initiative made possible by the history linking Victor Vasarely to the Luberon, as well as Pierre Vasarely’s attachment to the village of Cucuron.

Akatre is a creative studio founded in 2007 by Julien Dhivert and Sébastien Riveron. Its universe lies at the frontiers of graphic design, typography, 3D, audiovisual and musical creation. 

www.akatre.com