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BONHAMS CORNETTE DE SAINT CYR

34 - 34. 34AR W JESÚS RAFAEL SOTO (1923-2005) Black and grey virt…
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Estimate €120,000 - €180,000
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Description
34. 34AR W JESÚS RAFAEL SOTO (1923-2005) Black and grey virtual space 1966 signed, titled and dated 1966 on reverse oil on metal and wood, and nylon thread 146 x 106.3 x 35.2 cm. 57 1/2 x 41 7/8 x 13 7/8 in. Provenance Galerie Denise René, Paris Sale at Binoche, Espace Cardin, Paris, Tableaux modernes et d'aujourd'hui, 25 March 1974, lot 89 Bis Collection Monsieur & Madame Claude Cluzel, Europe (acquired at this sale) Then by descent to the current owner Exhibition Zagreb, Galerija Suvreme Umjetnosti, Soto, 16 June - 23 August 1970, n°15, listed The ductile grace of Jesús Rafael Soto's works is a counterpoint to his mastery, which highlights a profound reflection on the perceptual problems of the abstract-constructivist system, overturning the traditional relationship between the viewer and the work (and thereby questioning the concept of the work of art), as well as offering a participatory and multi-sensory experience to anyone who stops for even a moment in front of his creations. The foundations of his exacting standards are a tribute to the material to which he gives life. Arriving in Paris in 1950, he joined the Disidentes group, whose artistic aims were close to those of Bauhaus, De Stijl, etc., and devoured Michel Seuphor's book L'art abstrait, ses origines, ses premiers maîtres, published that same year. Under the benevolent eye of Auguste Herbin, he attended lectures at the abstract art workshop founded by Jean Dewasne and Edgar Pillet and took part in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in 1951, of which he would say "for me, it was not abstraction, but the simplification of figuration". Less than four years later, in April 1955, Jesús Rafael Soto took part in the now legendary "Le Mouvement" exhibition at the Denise René gallery, which was to be the birth certificate of kinetic art. Young people in their thirties joined the illustrious elders Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder: Victor Vasarely, Robert Jacobsen, Yaacov Agam, Jean Tinguely and Pol Bury. The art critic Roger Bordier wrote the day after the opening: "Here we have the transformable work of art. Whether through the mobility of the piece itself, optical movement or the intervention of the viewer, the work of art has in fact become, by its very nature, constantly and perhaps indefinitely re-creable". Freed from its immutable character, the work of art has thus been liberated from its fixity. It was on discovering the Rotative created by Marcel Duchamp in 1921 (presented at the aforementioned exhibition) that the artist developed a kinetic vocabulary based on vibration, experimenting with the qualities of chromatic planes and the relationships between lines, her constructions playing on optical effects, because all that matters in her art is the eye and the involvement of the viewer. Convinced of his incredible talent, Denise René, who was not far wrong in seeing him as a spiritual son of Mondrian, gave him his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1956. Five years later, Jesús Rafael Soto took part in the international kinetic art exhibition Bewogen Beweging organised by Daniel Spoerri at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and later by Ponthus Hulten at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Espace virtuel gris et noir, created in 1966, was acquired by Claude Cluzel in 1974 and has remained in his collection ever since. This masterly creation is a perfect illustration of the artist's statement that same year: "What interests me is the transformation of matter. Taking an element, a line, a piece of wood or iron and transforming it into pure light... into vibration". In front of the striated background (which has replaced the Plexiglas or rhodoid of previous years), the metal rods quiver and levitate, suspended, intoxicating and ethereal. The second work we are presenting, created in 1970, takes its heritage from Malevich and his friend "Yves le monochrome". Light and floating, the blue overseas square adds a twirling presence (that of shadow) to the radiant light, once again playfully spurning the rigidity of form. The Guggenheim Museum in New York, with its retrospective exhibition in 1974, crowned Jesús Rafael Soto as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, who, by fragmenting matter, was able to retain only its essence, marked by oscillation and poetry.
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About the sale Post-War & Contemporary Art including the Cluzel Collection
Auction location
Auction time 06/04/2026 at 4:00 PM
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