El color en el espacio y en el tiempo...

After work one afternoon, my boss and now friend mentioned there was a new collection she wanted to see, featuring over 150 works of Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez at the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). I am not usually a big fan of modern art, a red square on a white canvas or some paint thrown around may be art to one, but it just doesn't do anything for me, I just don't feel a connection to it. Maybe I have been spoiled by seeing the most breathtaking Renaissance art in Italy...staring up at the Sistine Chapel and tears filling my eyes and witnessing the faces of marble sculptures that had more true and real features than actual human beings. As I began to dread walking around looking at boring shapes and colors, my perspective completely changed as I entered the next room...

His exhibit, "el color en el espacio y en el tiempo" means "color in space and time" as the pieces seemed to come alive as I walked past, traveling through actual space and time. Using paint, plastic, cardboard, silk screen, light and shapes, Cruz-Diez creates the effect of the pieces physically changing form as I moved around them. If I stood directly in front, it would appear as a blur, but if I walked to the right or the left, I see different shapes appear and the colors change and sharpen. In fact, the yellow I saw within a specific piece, actually didn't exist, rather it was the retina's perception of the contrast of red and green stripes projected into space. The play of light and color appear as if they were living organisms in a constant state of transformation. It was incredible. It was moving. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. And yet, I couldn't help but notice the connection this art has to our lives. Sometimes, we see the picture directly in front of us. Blurry, confused, scary even. But when we change our perspective, when we walk around it and actually peer into it, our view changes, our attitude changes. And as the pieces change, we too can change. Morphing into the person we were truly meant to be. Through space and through time, we can each become greater than what we first appeared to be.