Carlos Cruz Diez Biography
Carlos Cruz Diez was born on August 17, 1923 in Caracas, Venezuela. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Caracas, where he graduated in applied arts. After starting his career in advertising and spending some time in New York, Cruz Diez had his first exhibition at the Venezuelan-American Institute in Caracas in 1947, featuring 12 gouaches.
Cruz Diez then lived in Barcelona for over a year before moving to Paris in 1955 where he exhibited his works at Le Mouvement of the Denise René Gallery. He continued to exhibit at the Buchholz Gallery in Madrid in 1956 with a series of Parenchyma and Mobile Rhythmic Objects. In 1959 he created his first works Couleur Additive and Physichromie. He established his permanent residence in Paris in 1960.
Throughout his 70-year career, Cruz Diez's works have been based on three color conditions: subtractive, additive and reflective. He has developed eight lines of research: Couleur Additive, Physichromie, Induction Chromatique, Chromointerférence, Transchromie, Chromosaturation, Chromoscope and Couleur à l'Espace. Today his works are preserved in major museums and public collections around the world, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Center Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
Cruz Diez conducted extensive research on color theory and is considered one of the key thinkers of the 20th century in this field. It refocused the experience of art on perceptual experience and repositioned color as the primary force in guiding the visual response to a work of art. His research has contributed to the reconsideration of the artist-spectator relationship within the participatory process, rooted exclusively in the effects of color.
Cruz Diez's practice was centered on the perceptual experience of art, going beyond traditional mediums such as painting and sculpture. Through installations and site-specific works, his work focused on spatial perception, encouraging viewer participation in the artistic experience. He approached artistic creation rigorously, seeing color as a physical phenomenon that can be manipulated both through context and the viewer's perception.
One of his most acclaimed series, Physichromie, began in 1959 and focused on creating the illusion of movement through the manipulation of light and color. His continuous experimentation with unconventional techniques and technologies played a key role in his approach to art, placing him at the forefront of the digital revolution that would follow in the future, allowing the public to create unique works of art using the assistance of computer with its characteristic palette.
Throughout his career, Carlos Cruz Diez has played an important role in urban space with his works designed to reach a wide audience for everyday life. As a result, hundreds of his creations can be found around the world, occupying spaces that have become iconic, such as the airport in Caracas, Venezuela, or the Place du Venezuela in Paris.
