SOTO – PERROTIN
Galerie Perrotin presents “Chronochrome,” a double exhibition dedicated to Jesús Rafael Soto (1923-2005), held simultaneously in its Paris and New York spaces. Organised in collaboration with the artist’s estate and curated by Matthieu Poirier, the exhibition will present some sixty works from his estate or from institutions, made between 1957 and 2003. This two-part exhibition continues the current international rediscovery of Soto, which is illustrated by the recent retrospective at the Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Pompidou (2013), and by his inclusion in “Dynamo. A Century of Light and Movement in Art. 1913-2013” at Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (2013), as well as in the current “ZERO: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s–60s” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, in the Frank Lloyd Wright building where Soto had a major retrospective back in 1974.
For Soto, colour is experienced in and for itself only in the real time and space of perception. The term “chronochrome” is used less in its original sense (it was a process for making colour films, invented in 1912) than to describe the kinetic exploration of the monochrome. Soto was a close friend of Yves Klein, but in Soto’s work, pure colour leaves the stable support of the surface in order to become a vibratory phenomenon.
Jesús Rafael Soto was born in Venezuela in 1923. He trained at art school in Caracas and came to Paris in 1950, which remained his base for the rest of his life.
Matthieu Poirier holds a doctorate in art history from the Sorbonne, where he has also taught. Formerly a resident at Centre Allemand d’Histoire de l’Art, he recently curated or co-curated « Post-Op » at Galerie Perrotin (2014), « Dynamo » at Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais and « Julio Le Parc » at Palais de Tokyo (2013).
On the occasion of the exhibition a 170 page catalogue will be published, with texts by Matthieu Poirier and Jean Clay.