Page 27 - Studio Interantional - May 1967

Vasa rely: a survey of his work

Jean Clay

`Op art' is certainly one of the most significant phenomena of
recent years in the world of art: the tide of op art flowed suddenly,
spread out into commerce and ebbed again with equal suddenness,
leaving stranded a few artists who have never quite recovered
from their amazement at being for a time as famous as film stars.
But sociologists of the future will no doubt take greatest interest
in the way in which the purpose and direction of op art altered as
it began to fill the supermarket shelves. Within a few months
this experiment into the dematerialization of shapes, the visual
destruction of surfaces, born out of the austere meditations of
Albers and Mondrian, changed under the influence of interior
decorators, poster designers, dressmakers and others, into a kind
of generalized gimmick (`Be an op art optimist!' was a headline
in one woman's magazine) which aimed to underline the joy of
living and capture the interest of harassed housewives in our
modern cities. A vision of the world, an attempt to redefine
plastic space, a fundamental experience of the senses and intellect,
was reduced to a mere trend for decorating beach mats, umbrellas
and knife stands.
For his part, Vasarely, who was soon hailed—in spite of himself—
as the 'father' of op art, reacted strongly against this cheap
parody of his aesthetic principles. Now that the fanfares of
publicity are dying down, it seemed worthwhile examining with
him, in detail, the stages of his artistic thought.
I went to Vasarely' s country house—where he lives for most of
the year-30 miles from Paris, and for some days discussed with
him his life, his work, his ideas. Together we re-read those often
prophetic texts of his which he has dedicated to the artist's
creative problems many of which are included in a monograph just
published by Editions Griffon.
This article is the result of our conversations.

Victor Vasarely at his 1950 exhibition Formes et Couleurs Murales
at Denise René, Paris, and (below) photographed by Etienne Weill
against a background of Vega, a painting of 1957

Illustrations accompanying this article are courtesy Galerie Denise
René, Paris, unless otherwise stated