13/8 – 30/11 2021
Forum de la Fondation d’Leentreprise Hermès | Tokyo | Japan
In the heart of Tokyo, Le Forum is a light-filled exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art, housed in a building designed by Renzo Piano. Julio Le Parc unfurls his oeuvre across Le Forum and beyond, occupying the entirety of the Maison Hermès in Ginza both inside and out: a large-scale work will fill the glass façade of the Renzo Piano building. Now 92 years old, the Argentinian-born artist has lived in France since 1958, tirelessly pursuing his research on colour across a palette of fourteen shades. Exploring repetition, rotation, and effects of contrast and variation, Julio Le Parc’s work touches the viewer with a range of sensations: from vibrating images, to the vertigo of the infinite, to the playful experience of movement. “Les Couleurs en Jeu”, Le Parc’s first solo exhibition in Japan, offers a rich immersion in his decade-spanning œuvre by bringing together early paintings with emblematic series such as La Longue Marche and the Lames réfléchissantes, as well as with suspended mobiles, another significant aspect of the work of this major figure of contemporary art.
Strongly inspired by the painter Piet Mondrian and the Russian Constructivism art movement, Julio Le Parc uses geometric abstraction and colours to challenge the traditional role of art as appreciated by the elite and consumed passively.
Focusing on his use of colour, the exhibition “Les Couleurs en Jeu” features a varied selection of the artist’s work that creates visual vibrations between different colours, thereby actively and physically engaging the viewer.