Jesús Rafael Soto (1923-2005)

Private Collection, New York

New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Soto: A Retrospective Exhibition, November 8, 1974-January 5, 1975, no. 43, illustrated
Caracas, Sala Ipostel, Museo de Arte Contemponáneo de Caracas, Obras de Soto, Exposición Inaugural, November 1980, p. 9, illustrated in color
Madrid, Palacio de Velázquez del Parque del Retiro, SOTO, February-March 1982, no. 48, p. 35, illustrated in color
Kanagawa, The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, May 19-June 10, 1990; Saitama, The Museum of Modern Art, June 16- August 9, 1990; Fukushima, Iwaki City Art Museum, August 18-September 24, 1990; Itami, Itami City Museum of Art, November 23, 1990-January 20, 1991; SOTO, no. 35, p. 55, illustrated

Alfredo Boulton, Soto, Caracas, 1973, p. 109, illustrated in color

In general the 16 square elements are in very good condition, showing original paint. The two striped, original panels are in healthy condition. Some rubbing can be detected at the jointure of the wooden square elements attached to the back panel. Otherwise, the condition is consistent with the age of this piece.
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Soto remembers how in 1949 he overheard a recent visitor to MoMA comment about a “white square painting over a white background... I think they are going crazy, there is nothing there, there´s [nothing] to see.”  Soto continues: “This was a revelation for me, this work, by Casimir Malevich” (which he would only see ten years later) “became a source of inspiration: it was the perfect and simplest form to trap light on a canvas.” (1)

In many of his works from the 1950s (Progressions and Displacements), Soto composed with and on squares. “The square represents the most genuine human form since it is a purely human creation. The square and geometric figures in general, are pure invention of the human spirit, they are an intellectual conception and what I am mostly interested in them is that they do not possess a specific dimension.” (2)

In 1955, Soto created “the Villanueva´s box” essentially showing a painted square on Plexiglas vibrating over black and white stripes in the background. While Malevich tilted white square seems off balance and Mondrian´s colors in Broadway Boogie Boogie, 1943 appear to be moving, Soto´s subterfuge brings the square and the composition in general to a revolutionary vibrational state produced by the displacement of the viewer. His brilliant coup is considered an essential contribution to the development of abstract and kinetic art.

Ten years after his first vibrating square over stripes, Soto returned to the spirit of the optical repetitions of the early 1950s with a new series, the Vibrant Squares. Sixteen red and black vibrant squares, 1965, is perhaps the first of the series and certainly the better known. Soto´s radical composition exhibits sixteen squares and a single true chromatic value, not coincidentally, an austere brick red. This construction is separated by a median line proposing two rectangular mirroring fields. The lower red arrangement suggests a space for the senses while the abstract black portion possibly belongs to an intellectual, ideal dimension. By slightly moving in front of the work, Soto´s concept about the uncertain dimension of geometry becomes evident.

 

(1)    Ariel Jiménez, Jesús Soto, In conversation with Ariel Jiménez, Fundación Cisneros, Caracas, 2011, p. 33

(2)    Ibid. p. 139