Installation Reimagines Color as an Embodied Experience, Inviting Viewers to Become Participants in the Artwork
Opening June 10, 2022
Installation view: Carlos Cruz-Diez. Chromosaturation, 1965/2017. Museo Würth La Rioja. Photo: Rafael Lafuente.
(MIAMI, FL — June 2, 2022) — Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is pleased to present Carlos Cruz-Diez: Chromosaturation, an immersive installation by the artist Carlos Cruz-Diez, opening on June 10, 2022. Acquired for PAMM’s collection in 2020 with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez, Chromosaturation is an immersive environment that reimagines color as an embodied experience. Initially conceived in 1965, the installation consists of three connected chambers infused with intensely saturated red, green, and blue light. Upon entering this space, visitors are transported by a chromatic experience that shifts as one moves from one space to the next. The experience scrambles the retina, which is normally accustomed to perceiving a wide range of colors simultaneously. Eliciting both a strong sensorial and emotional response in viewers, the installation transitions from a visual experience into a bodily one, underscoring the notion of color as a material, physical phenomenon that unfolds continuously in time and space.
Born in 1923 in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, Cruz-Diez is a giant in the story of late 20th-century art. His investigations into the ever changing and ephemeral nature of color established him as one of the key pioneers of Kinetic and Op art, using optical illusion and motion at the precipice of his work. Through his experimental use of light, movement, space, and viewer interactivity, Cruz-Diez encouraged “an awareness of the instability of reality” while proposing a new definition of art as a field of active participation.
“Chromosaturation synthesizes Cruz-Diez’s extensive research into color, and we are thrilled to present this groundbreaking artwork for the first time since it was acquired in 2020,” said Iberia Pérez González, Andrew W. Mellon Caribbean Cultural Institute Coordinator at PAMM. “This artwork exemplifies his most accomplished effort at projecting color into space as a participatory event.”
Chromosaturation is emblematic of Cruz-Diez’s pioneering contribution to the experimental practices that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, which proposed the dematerialization of the object in favor of participatory situations that engage the spectator’s body, senses, and subjectivity. Cruz-Diez’s experimentations with color and sensory perception anticipated many of the immersive and participatory tendencies of recent art.
Located within a city made of diverse immigrant communities, PAMM lends a unique context for a celebration of Carlos Cruz-Diez, an artist of Latin American heritage with a distinctly global perspective. This exhibition further reflects PAMM’s ongoing commitment to presenting exhibitions of work from artists across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the African Diaspora.
Chromosaturation is organized by PAMM’s Andrew W. Mellon Caribbean Cultural Institute Coordinator Iberia Pérez González with PAMM’s former Director of Curatorial Affairs and Chief Curator René Morales. This exhibition is presented with support from Patricia and William Kleh.
EXHIBITION RELATED EVENTS
Exhibition Opening + Curator Introduction
June 9, 2022 | 7pm
Come experience the newly installed Carlos Cruz-Diez immersive installation, Chromosaturation. Acquired for PAMM’s collection in 2020 with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez, Chromosaturation is an immersive environment that reimagines color as an embodied experience. The work will be introduced briefly by exhibition curator Iberia Pérez González and guests will be invited to experience the installation. Entrance to the installation will be provided on a first come, first served basis, as available. Learn more.
PAMM Free Second Saturdays: Chromo-Kinetic Collage
June 11, 2022 | 11am–3pm
As part of PAMM Free Second Saturdays, create artwork inspired by Carlos Cruz-Diez’s installation Chromosaturation. Create your own “chromosaturated” kinetic sculpture using a variety of art-making materials. PAMM teaching artists will guide visitors of all ages in art-making experiences and encourage guests to create a unique design using color, unusual shapes, and perhaps even a kinetic element. For the rest of the day, you can explore the galleries, grab a meal at Verde, or sit back and enjoy the breeze on the waterfront terrace. Learn more.
ABOUT CARLOS CRUZ-DIEZ
Carlos Cruz-Diez is one of the main protagonists of contemporary art. His research and his writings make him the last great thinker of the 20th century in the realm of color. His work has revealed a new understanding of chromatic phenomena in art and has considerably expanded its perceptual universe.
Cruz-Diez proposes color as an autonomous and evolutive reality that can be perceived with the same power as temperature or sound by the human being. In Cruz-Diez’s works, events that take place in space and time, without anecdotes or references, stripped from any symbols, past or future, in a continuous present.
Carlos Cruz-Diez describes himself as an artist applying the discipline of a scientist “because the supports that I have managed to structure are a source of surprise and imponderables… In my works, nothing is left to chance; everything is intended, planned, and programmed. Liberty and emotions are only present when choosing colors, a task with only one self-imposed restriction: to be efficient in what I want to say. It is a combination of both rationale and emotion. I don’t get inspired: I reflect.”
ABOUT PAMM
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), led by Director Franklin Sirmans, promotes artistic expression and the exchange of ideas, advancing public knowledge and appreciation of art, architecture, and design, and reflecting the diverse community of its pivotal geographic location at the crossroads of the Americas. The 38-year-old South Florida institution, formerly known as Miami Art Museum (MAM), opened a new building, designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, on December 4, 2013 in Downtown Miami’s Maurice A. Ferré Park. The facility is a state-of-the-art model for sustainable museum design and progressive programming and features 200,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor program space with flexible galleries; shaded outdoor verandas; a waterfront restaurant and bar; a museum shop; and an education center with a library, media lab, and classroom spaces.
