Carlos Cruz Diez

CARLOS CRUZ DIEZ (Caracas, 1923 - Paris, 2019).
"Chromatic introduction to double frequency Orinoco Nº1".
Lithograph on paper. Copy 46/75 cm.
Enclosed certificate of authenticity issued by the Atelier Cruz-Diez.
Publisher: Polígrafa. Paris, 2018.
Signature and justification printed on the back.
Measurements: 60 x 60 cm.
Double frequency chromatic introduction Orinoco Nº1 belongs to the Orinoco series, the last one developed by Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez, a fundamental figure of kinetic art and contemporary research on color. In this final stage, the master reaffirms one of his most persistent searches: to free color from form and turn it into an autonomous and changing experience.
The work is inscribed in the principle of Induction Chromatique, based on the phenomenon of the after-image or retinal persistence. When the eye fixes its attention on an intense color and then moves on, it generates its complementary as an ephemeral apparition. Cruz-Diez condenses this process into a single instant: the induced color does not emerge as a fleeting memory, but as a simultaneous, unstable and vibrant presence. It is there and it is not there; it is not pigment applied directly, but it is perceived with full intensity.
In Orinoco Nº1, the "double frequency" suggests a rhythmic dialogue between chromatic ranges that continuously activate the retina. The spectator does not contemplate the work passively: the experience changes with each displacement, with each variation of light. Color occurs in time, it is constructed in the gaze.
Carlos Cruz-Diez was a French-Venezuelan artist who lived and worked in Paris from 1960 until his death in 2019. He is considered one of the most important referents of optical and kinetic art, and a true thinker of color in the 20th century, as he reinvented its role in visual perception.
His work proposes that color is not a fixed attribute of a form, but an autonomous reality that exists and changes in space and time, independently of supports or physical forms.
Before settling in Europe, Cruz-Diez trained at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas in Caracas, worked in advertising and graphic design, and then founded his own Estudio de Artes Visuales in Caracas, where he began his research on the chromatic phenomenon. In Paris, he participated in key exhibitions such as The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, which consolidated his role within kinetic art. His most emblematic series, such as Physichromies, Induction Chromatique and Chromosaturation, explore how color interacts with the viewer and is transformed by movement and light.
His legacy can be found in the collections of the world's most important museums, and his vision of color as a perceptual experience continues to profoundly influence contemporary art.