artist/ Carlos Cruz-Diez

Venezuela / France

Carlos Cruz-Diez was a leading figure in Kinetic and Op Art whose lifelong research focused on color as an autonomous, evolving reality. He rejected the idea of color as a fixed attribute of form, proposing instead that color exists independently in space and time. Through series such as Physichromie and Chromointerférence, he constructed layered structures that generate chromatic changes as viewers move. His work integrates art, science, and perception, transforming color into a dynamic phenomenon rather than a static property. Cruz-Diez’s public interventions—installed in airports, metro stations, and urban spaces worldwide—expanded his research into architecture and everyday life. Based in Paris for much of his career, he became one of the most influential Latin American artists of the twentieth century, profoundly shaping global discourses on abstraction and perceptual art.