Carlos Cruz-Diez

Carlos Cruz-Diez is one of the founding fathers of the Op Art movement, and his revolutionary sculptures and paintings push the boundaries of light and space through their kinetic qualities. Cruz-Diez was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1923. He began his formal training at the School of Applied and Plastic Arts in 1940 and received his degree as a professor of applied arts in 1945. The following year, Cruz-Diez became the advertising director of the agency McCann-Erickson. In 1947, the first exhibit of his work was on display at the Instituto Venezolano-Americano. Cruz-Diez traveled to Paris in 1955 and was struck by the Le Movement exhibit of Op Art at Galerie Denise René. In 1960, Cruz-Diez relocated to Paris with his family. And five years later, Cruz-Diez’s art was featured in the influential exhibit The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The influential, and controversial, show included the work of Bridget Reilly, Ellsworth Kelly, Josef Albers, and Max Bill among others.

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In 1970, Cruz-Diez was invited to exhibit for Venezuela at the Venice Biennale and in 1997, the Carlos Cruz-Diez Print and Design Museum opened in Caracas. France awarded Cruz-Diez with the Order of Arts and Letters for his art in 2002. Over the past two decades Cruz-Diez has moved towards relational aesthetics, often incorporating public interaction into his installations, and most famously with his public art series entitled Labyrinthe de Chromosaturation consisting of brightly-colored chambers.

Cruz-Diez continues to live and create art in Paris. His work has been honored with retrospectives at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the University Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City. His work resides within the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among many others.

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