
Electric Op
D Giles Ltd (Publisher)
Published on 7. October 2024
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-913875-69-5 (ISBN)
Description
One of the most popular artistic styles of the 20th century, Op art transformed European geometric abstraction into a global phenomenon in the mid-1960s. Its disorienting patterns and illusions, rendered with machine-like precision, became icons of the futuristic Space Age. As the 1960s faded, Op became a short-lived fad, dismissed by art historians and critics as visual kitsch. However, over the last 15 years, many museums have reintroduced Op to audiences who enthusiastically embrace it as a reflection of contemporary life. Emerging at precisely the same time as mainstream video technologies and the modern digital computer, Op helped shape the aesthetics of electronic media, becoming the first artistic movement of the Information Age.
Featuring plates of 123 artworks by 88 international artists and collectives from the 1960s to the present (including Victor Vasarely, Vera Molnar, Lillian Schwartz, Peter Halley, Angela Bulloch, JODI, Ryoji Ikeda and Cory Arcangel), Electric Op offers a scholarly re-evaluation of the legacy of abstraction and the surprisingly intertwined histories of contemporary and digital art. It is also a blockbuster of dazzling works that appeal to all ages, including iconic masterpieces alongside rarely-seen gems. Outstanding works from the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and the Musee d'Arts de Nantes are supplemented with key loans from other major museums, private collections and artists.
Featuring plates of 123 artworks by 88 international artists and collectives from the 1960s to the present (including Victor Vasarely, Vera Molnar, Lillian Schwartz, Peter Halley, Angela Bulloch, JODI, Ryoji Ikeda and Cory Arcangel), Electric Op offers a scholarly re-evaluation of the legacy of abstraction and the surprisingly intertwined histories of contemporary and digital art. It is also a blockbuster of dazzling works that appeal to all ages, including iconic masterpieces alongside rarely-seen gems. Outstanding works from the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and the Musee d'Arts de Nantes are supplemented with key loans from other major museums, private collections and artists.
More details
Edition
Bilingual edition
Language
French
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Edition type
Bilingual edition
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Paper over boards
Illustrations
183 colour
Dimensions
Height: 308 mm
Width: 258 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
2050 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-913875-69-5 (9781913875695)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Tina Rivers Ryan is a curator at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, New York; Lindsay Caplan is assistant professor of History of Art and Architecture at Brown University; Zsofi Valyi-Nagy is an artist and postdoctoral scholar in residence at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; Jacob Gaboury is an associate professor of Film & Media at the University of California at Berkeley
Content
Foreword by Janne Siren, Peggy Pierce Elfvin Director, Buffalo AKG Art Museum and Sophie Levy, Director-Curator, Musee d'Arts de Nantes; Acknowledgements by Tina Rivers Ryan; Electric Op by Tina Rivers Ryan; Plates; Mixed Metaphors: Op Art and the Science of Perception by Lindsay Caplan; Toward a Science of Art: Visual Research in Europe by Zsofi Valyi-Nagy; Grids and Vectors: The Aesthetics of the Digital by Jacob Gaboury; Artists' Texts; Exhibition Checklist; Bibliography; Contributors; Photographic Credits