Experience colour with Carlos Cruz-Diez

You haven’t experienced colour until you’ve experienced the work of Carlos Cruz-Diez, otherwise known as “El Maestro”. Renown for his pioneering contribution to the world of kinetic art, Carlos Cruz-Diez’s latest exhibition shows Miami how to really play with colour.

Carlos Cruz-Diez is considered to be “one of Latin America’s most important living masters”. Cruz-Diez is famous for his exploration of colour’s kinetic potential during the 1960s. According to the Venezuelan artist, colour is described as being “not simply the color of things or the color of form [but rather] an evolving situation, a reality which acts on the human being with the same intensity as cold, heat, and sound.” A lot of Cruz-Diez’s work incorporates a ‘particapatory aesthetic’. In his latest exhibition being held at Miami Art Museum, “ The Embodied Experience of Color”, Cruz-Diez focuses entirely on sensory chromatic environments and interactive projects in which he features four participatory environments: Cromosaturación (Chromosaturation), Duchas de inducción cromática (Showers of Chromatic Induction), Ambiente cromointerferente (Chromo-interferent Environment), and Experiencia cromática aleatoria interactiva (Aleatory Interactive Chromatic Experience).

"Cromosaturación"

One of the exhibition’s main feature is Cromosaturación (Chromosaturation), a site-specific environment designed by the artist that concentrates on the relationship between colour and perception. Chromosaturation was first visualized in 1965 and exhibited for the first time in 1968 in the Ostwald Museum in Dortmund, Germany where three separate colour chambers infused with red, green and blue light. The main highlight of this particular work is the visitor's experience of “walking through the shifting chromatic space and interacting over time through his physical movement”. Chromosaturation truly plays with your concept of perception and at the same time, fun for all.

"Duchas de inducción cromática"

Another crowd favourite amongst Cruz-Diez’s four participartory works on display is “Duchas de inducción cromática (Showers of Chromatic Induction), , actually one of Cruz-Diez’s first experiments in playing with the idea of colour in space, where colour is meant to be experienced via a series of booths in the shape of showers made with strips of transparent coloured plastic.