Creating Immersive Environments

Acclaimed Argentinean artist Julio Le Parc has spent the past 60 years dreaming up experiences exploring form, colour, light, movement and visual effects that engage all the senses. After arriving in Paris in 1958, the intrepid artist dedicated his time to creating a unique style of visual art based on the concepts of Constructivism and geometry. “On one side was the experience on the surface we were creating. On the other side was the viewer but there’s a third place that was the relationship between the eye and the surface,” he explains of the purpose of his works.

- Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle

“Through my works, I have always sought to get spectators to behave differently,” states Julio Le Parc, 91, an emblematic figure in the history of art. “I wanted to find ways to fight passivity, dependency and ideological conditioning by helping viewers develop their ability to think, compare, analyze, create and act.”

His recent limited-edition table centerpiece collection for French porcelain manufacturer Bernardaud is a good example. Covered with a band of colour and textured lines that gradually progress in steps, Déplacement Sur Plateau (Displacement on a Plateau) recalls his Displacement series sculptures with reflective blades that fragment and multiply the image to offer bewildering optic effects as a viewer walks around them.

Then there’s his signature Continual-Light-Cylinder, of which he has been making variations since 1962. Presented at his debut solo exhibition in Asia at Galerie Perrotin in Hong Kong earlier in the year and affixed to the ceiling for the first time, it gave visitors the impression of directly stepping inside the mesmerizing and contemplative artwork as they lay on a mattress looking up at the construction of wood, superimposed rotating metal discs, lamps, Plexiglas mirrors and motors, which diffused fractioned light rays in a circle within a pitch-black space.

Drawing you in

At the heart of Julio’s multisensory works is the viewer's experience and allowing the viewer to make sense of the artwork based on what he or she sees.