Op Art

The antecedents of Op art in terms of graphic and color effects can be traced back
to Neo-impressionism, Cubism, Futurism,Constructivism and Dada.
Time Magazine coined the term op art in 1964 in response to Julian Stanczak's show
Optical Paintings at the Martha Jackson gallery to mean a form of abstract art (specifically
non-objective art) that uses optical illusions. Works now be described as "op art" had been
produced for several years before Time's 1964 article. For instance, Victor Vasarely's
painting, Zebras (1938), is made up entirely of curvilinear black and white stripes not
contained by contour lines. Consequently, the stripes appear to both meld into and burst
forth from the surrounding background. Also, the early black and white "dazzle" panels
that John McHale installed at the This Is Tomorrow exhibit in 1956 and his Pandora series at
theInstitute of Contemporary Arts in 1962 demonstrate proto-op art tendencies.
Op art perhaps more closely derives from the constructivist practices of the Bauhaus.
This German school, founded by Walter Gropius, stressed the relationship of form and
function within a framework of analysis and rationality. Students learned to focus on the
overall design or entire composition to present unified works. Op art also stems
from Trompe-l'il and Anamorphosis. Links with psychological research have also been
made, particularly with Gestalt theory and Psychophysiology.[2] When the Bauhaus was
forced to close in 1933, many of its instructors fled to the United States. There, the
movement took root in Chicago and eventually at the Black Mountain College in Asheville,
North Carolina, where Anni and Josef Albers eventually taught.
"Op artists thus managed to exploit various phenomena," writes Popper, "the afterimage and consecutive movement; line interference; the effect of dazzle; ambiguous figures
and reversible perspective; successive colour contrasts and chromatic vibration; and in
three-dimensional works different viewpoints and the superimposition of elements in space."
In 1955, for the exhibition Mouvements at the Denise Ren gallery in Paris, Victor
Vasarely and Pontus Hulten promoted in their "Yellow manifesto" some new kinetic
expressions based on optical and luminous phenomenon as well as painting illusionism. The
expression "Kinetic art" in this modern form first appeared at the Museum fr
Gestaltung of Zrich in 1960, and found its major developments in the 1960s. In most
European countries, it generally includes the form of optical art that mainly makes use
of optical illusions, like Op art, as well as art based on movement represented by Yacov
Agam, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jess Rafael Soto, Gregorio Vardanega or Nicolas Schffer. From
1961 to 1968, the GRAV (Groupe de Recherche dArt Visuel) founded by Franois
Morellet, Julio Le Parc, Francisco Sobrino, Horacio Garcia Rossi, Yvaral, Jol Stein and Vera
Molnr was a collective group of opto-kinetic artists thataccording to its 1963 manifesto
appealed to the direct participation of the public with an influence on its behavior, notably
through the use of interactive labyrinths.
Some members of the group Nouvelle tendance (1961-1965) in Europe also were
engaged in Op art as Almir Mavignier and Gerhard von Graevenitz, mainly with their
serigraphics. They studied optical illusions. The term "Op" irritated many of the artists
labeled under it, specifically including Albers and Stanczak. They had discussed upon the

birth of the term a better label, namely perceptual art.[5] From 1964, Arnold Schmidt (Arnold
Alfred Schmidt) had several solo exhibitions of his large, black and white shaped optical
paintings exhibited at the Terrain Gallery in New York.