Born in 1923 in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela
Died in 2005 in Paris, France

Jesús Rafael SOTO

Venezuelan-born artist Jesús Rafael Soto trained at an art school in Caracas. In 1950 he moved to Paris, which remained his base until his death in 2005. In 1955 Soto participated in Le Mouvement (The Movement) at Galerie Denise René, the exhibition that effectively launched kinetic art. During the same decade, he began making linear, kinetic constructions using industrial and synthetic materials such as nylon, Perspex, steel, and industrial paint.
 
Major exhibitions of Soto’s work took place at Signals London (1965); the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (1971); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1974); and Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris (1979). For each of these exhibitions, the artist used swaying nylon thread or plastic string to turn the gallery space into an all-encompassing, kinetic installation, in which the experience of the spectator within the constructed environment was central to the work’s meaning. Soto’s sculptures and environments often play with the juxtaposition of solid and void, deliberately unsettling the act of viewing by blurring the distinction between reality and illusion.

view all
loader

solo shows

2023
- Masters that changed the city: A tribute to Jesús Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz Diez on Their Centennial, Coral Gables Museum, Miami, USA 
- Geometrismos. Jesús Soto y su tiempo, Espacio Arte al Cubo Centro Banavén - Cubo Negro, Caracas, Venezuela 
- J.R. Soto, Galería Elvira Gonzalez, Madrid, Spain
- Jesús Rafael Soto: The instability of the real, Galería RGR, Mexico City, Mexico
- Jesús Soto, color, shape, vibration, Dan Contemporary Gallery, São Paulo, Brazi

2022
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Galerie Perrotin, New York, USA
- Soto: Prints and Multiples, Marlborough Gallery, New York, USA
- Homenaje a Soto, Cubo Negro, Caracas, Venezuela
- Invisible: a tale of ethereal lines, León Tovar gallery, New York, USA

2020
- Carrément SOTO, Galerie Denise René espace marais, Paris, France
- Axis of Horizon, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
- Soto. The Fourth Dimension, Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain

2019
- Soto. The Fourth Dimension, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Pénétrable BBL bleu, Espace Louis Vuitton, Tokyo, Japon
- Soto. Vibrations 1950-1960, Hauser & Wirth, New York, USA

2015
- Jesús Rafael Soto. Une rétrospective, Musée Soulages, Rodez, France
- Chronochrome, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France
- Chronochrome, Galerie Perrotin, New York, USA

2014
- Jesús Rafael Soto: Houston Penetrable, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA
- Jesús Rafael Soto: Pénétrable de Chicago, Art Institute, Chicago, USA

2013
- Soto dans la collection du Musée National d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

2012
- Soto, Paris and Beyond, 1950-1970, Grey Art Gallery, New York, USA
- Soto Unearthed, A 1968 Film and Selected Early Work, Bosi Contemporary Gallery, New York, USA

2010
- Soto, Les Harmonies combinatoires, Galerie Denise René, Espace Marais et espace Rive gauche, Paris, France

2009
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Allemagne

2005
- Soto, A construcao da imaterialidade, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brésil

2004
- Soto, La couleur en suspens, Galerie Denise René, Rive gauche, Paris 

2003
- Soto, Le mouvement dans l’art, Galerie Denise René, Espace Marais et espace Rive gauche, Paris

2002
- Jesús Soto, Dan Galeria, Sao Paulo, Brésil
- Jesús Soto en Maracaibo, Centro de Arte Lia Bermúdez, Maracaibo, Venezuela (6 octobre-3 février)

2000
- Jesús Rafael Soto – Bilder und Skulpturen, 1959-2000, Allianz Versicherung-AG, Berlin, Allemagne (août-novembre)

1999
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Banque Bruxelles Lambert, Bruxelles, Belgique (mai-juillet)
- Soto, la poetica de la energia, Sala de Arte Telefonica, Santiago, Chili (16 juin-26 septembre)
- Die Poesie der Energie, Galerie Am lidenplatz, Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein (octobre1999-janvier 2000)

1997
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (janvier-mars) ; exposition itinérante : Stiftung fur konkrete Kunst, Reutlingen, Allemagne (20 avril-22 septembre) ; 
- Soto, Œuvres récentes, Galerie Denise René, Espace Marais et espace Rive Gauche, Paris, France (janvier-mars)

1993
- Retrospective, Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (avril-juin)
- Retrospective, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France

1992
- Rétrospective, Abbaye Saint-André, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Meymac, Meymac, France (juillet-septembre)
- Rétrospective, Le Carré / Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, France (octobre-décembre)

1990
- Soto, Galerie Sapone, Nice, France (31 mars-30 avril)
- Jesús Rafael Soto, The Museum of modern art, Kamakura, Japon, (19 mai-10 juin) ; exposition itinérante : The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japon (16 juin-9 août) ; Iwaki City Art Museum, Iwaki, Japon (18 août-24 septembre) ; Itami City Museum of Art, Itami, Japon (23 novembre – 20 janvier)
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Josef  Albers Museum, Quadrat, Bottrop, Allemagne (14 octobre-9 décembre)

1988
- Soto 1978-1988, Hyundai Gallery, Séoul, Corée du sud (20 octobre-30 octobre)

1987
- Soto, Galerie Gilbert Brownstone, Paris (26 septembre-14 novembre) ; exposition itinérante en 1988 : Elisabeth Franck Gallery, Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgique (6 août-19 septembre)

1986
- Soto, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Tokyo, Japon (23 mai-17 juin)

1985
- Soto, Space Art, Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, USA (4 octobre-3 novembre)
 
1984
- Soto, Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, USA (5 mai-26 mai)

1983
- Soto, Cuarenta años de creación, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Caracas, Venezuela (juin)

1982
- Soto, Palacio de Velázquez, Madrid, Espagne (février-mars)

1980
- Soto, Galerie Denise René, Paris (16 octobre-novembre)

1979
- Soto, Oeuvres actuelles, Musée National d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris (25 avril-11 juin)

1978
- Soto, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Danemark (1er avril-15 mai)

1977
- J.R. Soto – Ecritures, Galerie Bonnier, Genève, Suisse (mai-juin)

1975
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, USA

1974
- Soto, Recent Reliefs and Sculptures, Galerie Denise René, New York, USA (9 novembre-7 décembre)
- Soto, A Retrospective Exhibition, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (novembre)

1972
- Soto, Galerie Beyeler, Bâle, Suisse (avrilmai)

1971
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
- Soto, Museo de Bellas artes, Caracas, Venezuela (juillet-août) ; exposition itinérante en 1972 : Museo de arte moderno, Bogota, Colombie

1970
- Jesús Rafael Soto, Vibrationsbilder, Kinetische Strukturen, Environments, Kunstverein, Mannheim, Allemagne (26 avril-24 mai)
- Soto, oeuvres récentes, Galerie Denise René, Paris, France (17 juin-17 juillet)

1969
- Soto, Kinetische Werke, Stedelijk  Museum, Amsterdam, Pays-Bas, (11 janvier-23 février) ; exposition itinérante : Palais des beaux-arts, Bruxelles, Belgique ; Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris.
- Soto, Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York, U.S.A. (octobre-novembre)

1968
- Soto, Kinetische Werke, Kunsthalle, Berne, Suisse (21 mai-30 juin) ; exposition itinérante : Kunstverein, Düsseldorf, Allemagne ; Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanovre

1967
- Soto, de l’art optique à l’art cinétique, Galerie Denise René, Paris (mai-juin)

1966
- J.R. Soto, Kinetische Strukturen, Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf, Allemagne (février)
- Soto, Galleria del Naviglio, Milan, Italie ; exposition itinérante : Galleria del deposito, Genova-Bocadasse ; Galleria del Cavallino, Venise ; Centro Arte Viva-Feltrinelli, Triestre, Italie
- The Achievements of Jesus Rafael Soto, 1950-1965 : 15 Years of Vibration, Signals Gallery, Londres, Grande-Bretagne (28 octobre-24 décembre)

1965
- Vibrations by Soto, Kootz Gallery, New York, USA, (9 mars-27 mars) 
- Soto, Galerie Edouard Loeb, Paris (1er juin-31 juillet)

1963
- Soto, Kinetische Bilder, Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Allemagne (9 novembre-15 décembre)

1962
- Soto, Galerie Edouard Loeb, Paris (5 juin-13 juillet)
- J.R. Soto, Galerie Ad Libitum, Anvers, Belgique (24 février-15 mars)

1961
- Soto, Vibraciones, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela (avril-mai)

1959
- Soto, Galerie Iris Clert, Paris (juin)

1957
- Soto, Estructuras cineticas, museo de bellas artes, Caracas, Venezuela (juin)
- Soto, Peintures cinétiques, Palais des beaux-arts de Bruxelles, Belgique (26 janvier - 13 février-

1956
- Soto, Galerie Denise René, Paris, France (9-31 mars)

1949
- Jesús Soto, Taller libre de arte, Caracas, Venezuela (mai)

group shows

2022
- The Dynamic Eye : Op and Kinetic Art from the Tate Collection, Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai, China
- Going Global: Abstract Art at Mid-Century, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, USA
- The highest towers rise from the ground, Dan Contemporary Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
- MOUVEMENT, Hommage à Denise René, Bonisson Art Center, Rognes, France
- Paris et nulle part ailleurs, Musée de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris, France
- Révolution Xenakis, Cité de la Musique, Paris, France
- On the Grid: Ways of Seeing in Print, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, New York, USA
- Cinétique! La sculpture en mouvement, Fondation Villa Datais, Paris, France
- Wave, Marlborough Gallery, New York, USA
- Ivan Contreras-Brunet : L’Hommage, Galerie Wagner, Paris, France
- Zero, pop und minimal - Die 1960er und 1970er jahre, Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, Germany
- Hängepartie. Kunst mit offenem ende, Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, Germany

2021
- Hommage to Ulrich Schumacher, Emil Schumacher Museum, Hagen, Germany
- Sculpture en fête!, Fondation Villa Datris, Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, France
- Reticulárea, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
- La Forma Elusiva. Insurgencia y ruptura en el arte venezolano, Espacio Mercantil, Caracas, Venesuela
- Color and Motion, Ideas and Dreams, The Neuberger Museum of Art, New York, USA
- Line, Color and Movement, Dan Contemporary Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
- Los enemigos de la poesía: resistencias en América Latina, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

2020
- Tools for Utopia, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
- Sur moderno: Journeys of Abstraction —The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
- Multiplied: Edition MAT and the Transformable Work of Art, 1959–1965, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

2019
- Soto to Vigas, Gary Nader Art Center, Miami, USA
- La Collection de la Fondation: Le parti de la peinture, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France
- Vibrations, Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris, France

2018
- Open Works. Art in Movement, 1955-1975, Casa Milà, La Pedrera, Barcelona, Espagne

2017
- The Other Transatlantic. Kinetic and Op Art in Central & Eastern Europe and Latin America, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, RU
- The Other Transatlantic. Kinetic and Op Art in Central & Eastern Europe and Latin America, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, PO

2016
-  Art in Europe: 1945-1968, ZkM Museum, Karlsruhe, DE
- Eye Attack: Op Art 1950-1970, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaeck, Denmark

2015
- Paulin, Paulin, Paulin, Galerie Perrotin, Paris
- Zero: let us explore the stars, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
- Zero: The International Art Movement of the 50s and 60s, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin

2014
- Radical Geometry, Modern Art of South America from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, Londres, Grande-Bretagne (à partir du 5 juillet 2014)
- Zero, Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950's-1960's, Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (à partir du 10 octobre 2014)

2013
- Dynamo, Un siècle de lumière et de mouvement dans l’art, 1913-2013, Grand Palais, paris

2010
- Le Mouvement, From Cinema to Kinetic, Museum Tinguely Bâle, Suisse
- Suprasensorial experiments in light, color, and space, MOCA Los Angeles, USA

2008
- Revoluçao cinética, Museu do Chiado, Lisbonne, Portugal

2007
- The Geometry of Hope : Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, exposition itinérante : Blaton Museum of Art, Texas University, Austin, Texas, USA ; Grey Art Gallery, New York, USA

2006
- Zero, Internationale Künstler-Avantgarde des 50er/60er Jahre, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Allemagne ; exposition itinrante : ZERO, l’Avant Garde Internationale des Années 1950-1960, Musée d’Art Moderne St Etienne Métropole, Saint Etienne, France

2005
- L’œil Moteur, Art optique et cinétique 1950-1975, Musée d’art Moderne et Contemporain de Stabourg, France

2004
- MOMA at El Museo : Latin American & Caribbean Art from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, El Museo del Barrio, New York, USA
- Beyond Geometry : Experiments in Form, 1940s-70s, Los  Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA ; exposition itinérante : Miami Art Museum, Miami, USA
- Inverted Utopias : Avant-garde Art in Latin America, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA

2003
- 9 Venezuelan Modern Masters, Geometry and Movement, Madi Museum and Gallery, Dallas, Texas, USA

2001
- Denise René, l’Intrépide, Une Galerie dans l’Aventure de l’Art Abstrait (commissaire Jean-Paul Ameline), Mnam-Cci, Centre Pompidou, Paris

2000
- Campos de Fuerzas, un Ensayo sobre el Cinético (commissaire Guy Brett), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Espagne ; exposition itinérante : Force Fields : Phases of the Kinetic, Hayward Gallery, Londres, Grande-Bretagne
- Heterotopías, Medio Siglo Sin-Lugar : 1918 – 1968, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Espagne

1999
- Georges Pompidou et la Modernité, Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris

1998
- Zero International, Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain de la Ville de Nice, France

1997
- Made in France 1947-1997, Mnam-Cci, Centre Pompidou, Paris
- Zero und Paris 1960 und heute, Villa Merkel, Esslingen am Neckar, Allemagne

1996
- Chimères Polymères, Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain de la Ville de Nice, France
Biennale de São Paulo, Brésil

1994
- Soto-Otero-Cruz-Diez, Tres Maestros del Abstraccionismo en Venezuela y su Proyección Internacional, Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela

1993
- Manifeste, Une histoire parallèle, 1960-1990 (commissaires Germaine Viatte et Jean-Paul Ameline), Mnam-Cci, Centre Pompidou

1992
- Exposition universelle de Séville, Espagne
- L’art en mouvement, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France
- L’Amérique latine, 1911-1968, Mnam-Cci, Centre Pompidou

1990
- Blau Konkret, Alte Universität, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg, Allemagne
- Abstraction Géométrique du Constructivisme au Cinétisme, Centre culturel de Compiègne, France

1989
- Art in Latin America, exposition itinérante : Hayward Gallery, Londres, Grande-Bretagne ; Nationalmuseum and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Suède ;  Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Espagne

1988
- La Couleur Seule, l'Expérience du Monochrome (commissaire Maurice Besset), Musée Saint-Pierre d'Art Contemporain, Lyon, France

1986
- Contrasts of Form : Geometric Abstract Art 1910-1980 from the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Espagne ; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentine ; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brésil ; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas, Venezuela

1985
- Sculptures, Première Approche pour un Parc, Fondation Cartier, Jouy-en-Josas, France

1984
- Le Cinétisme : Mouvement Réel - Mouvement Suggéré 1955-1984, Abbaye Saint-André Centre d'Art Contemporain, Meymac, France

1983
- La Experimentación en el Arte, Centro Cultural del Conde Duque, Madrid, Espagne
- 1960, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie, Saint-Etienne, France
- Formes Vivantes, Deux Générations d'Artistes Français, 1951-1983, exposition itinérante : Björneborgs Konstmuseum, Finlande ; Helsingfors Konsthall, Finlande ; Malmö Konsthall, Suède 

1982
- L'Amérique Latine à Paris, Grand Palais, Paris

1981
- Paris-Paris, Mnam-Cci, Centre Pompidou, Paris
- Contemporary Art in Latin America and Japan, National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japon

1980
- Le Défi à la Peinture 1950-1980, Galerie Hervé Odermatt, Galerie Evolution Pierre Cardin, Paris.

1978
- L'Oeil en Action, exposition itinérante : Mnam-Cci, Centre Pompidou, Paris ; Musée de l'Histoire de la Guadeloupe, Basse-Terre ; Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing, France

1977
- L'Artiste et l'Environnement, UNESCO, Paris

1976
- Panorama de l'Art Français 1960-1975, exposition itinérante 1976-1978 : Pinacothèque Nationale - Musée A. Soutsos, Athènes, Grèce ; Galerie Mehré Shah, Téhéran, Iran ; Musée National d'Art Moderne, Bagdad, Irak ; Musée National, Damas, Egypte ; Musée de Tel-Aviv, Israël ; Galerie Nationale de Bab Rouah, Rabat, Maroc ; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbonne, Portugal

1975
- The Mouvement, Galerie Denise René, New York, USA

1974
- Internationaler Zeitgenössischer Kunst, Kunsthalle, Nuremberg, Allemagne

1973
- Le Mouvement (commissaire Serge Lemoine), Salle Devosge, Biennale des Nuits de Bourgogne, Dijon, France

1972
- 72/72 : Douze ans d’art contemporain en France, 1960-1972 Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris (17 mai-30 septembre)
Festival d’Automne (1ère édition), Paris

1968
- Painting in France, 1900-1967, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C, USA ; exposition itinérante aux Etats-Unis
- Art Cinétique et espace (commissaire Frank Popper), Maison de la culture du Havre ; exposition itinérante à Louviers et aux Sables-d'Olonne, France
- XXXIVè Biennale de Venise, Venise, Italie

1967
- Lumière et Mouvement, Art Cinétique à Paris (commissaire Frank Popper), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (mai-août)

1966
- Lumière, Mouvement et Optique (exposition itinérante Licht und Bewegung, Kinetische Kunst commissaire Harald Szeemann), Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, Allemagne (2 février-3 mars)
- Pavillon du Venezuela, XXXIIIè Biennale de Venise, Venise, Italie
- Weiss auf Weiss, Kunsthalle, Berne, Suisse (25 mai-3 juillet)

1965
- Kinetic and Optical Art Today, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, USA (27 février-28 mars)
- 2nde exposition Nul (commissaire Willem Sandberg), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Pays-bas (15 avril-8 juin)
- Art et Mouvement (commissaire Frank Propper), Tel Aviv Museum of art, Tel Aviv
- Zero Avantgarde, Galleria Il Punto, Turin, Italie (8-28 juin)
- Licht und Bewegung, Kinetische Kunst (commissaire Harald Szeemann), Kunsthalle, Berne, Suisse (3 juillet-5 septembre)
- Lumière, Mouvement et Optique (exposition itinérante Licht und Bewegung, Kinetische Kunst commissaire Harald Szeemann), Palais des beaux-arts, Bruxelles, Belgique (14 octobre-14 novembre)
- Lumière, Mouvement et Optique (exposition itinérante Licht und Bewegung, Kinetische Kunst commissaire Harald Szeemann), Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Allemagne (3 décembre-9 janvier 1966)

1964
- Nouvelle tendance, Propositions visuelles du mouvement international, Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris (mai)
Dokumenta III, Kassel, Allemagne (27 juin-5 octobre)
XXXIIè Biennale de Venise, Venise, Italie 

1963
- Structures Vivantes, Bury, Soto, Takis, Galerie Diderot, Paris (avril-mai)
- Europäische Avantgarde, Schwanenhalle des Römers, Francfort, Allemagne (9 juillet-11 août)
- VIIè Biennale de São Paulo, Brésil

1961
- Bewogen Beweging (commissaires : Daniel Spoerri, Tinguely, Pontus Hulten), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Pays-bas (10 mars-17 avril) ; exposition itinérante : Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Suède ; Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Danemark

1960
- Kinestische Kunst, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zürich, Suisse (mai-juin)
- Konkrete Kunst - 50 Jahre Entwicklung, Helmhaus, Zürich, Suisse (8 juin-14 août)
- IIIè Festival d’art d’avant-garde, Paris

1959
- Vision in Motion, Motion in Vision, Breer, Bury, Klein, Mack, Mari, Munari, Necker, Piene, Rot, Soto, Spoerri, Tinguely, Van Hœydonck, Roth, Hessenhuis, Anvers, Belgique (21 mars-3 mai)
- Zero, Dynamo 1, Galerie Renate Boukes, Wiesbaden, Allemagne (10 huillet-7 août)
- Editiions MAT, Agam, Albers, Bury, Duchamp, Mack, Roth, Soto, Tinguely, Vasarely, multiplication d’objets, Galerie Edouard Loeb, Paris (27 novembre-19 décembre)

1958
- Pavillon vénézuélien, Exposition universelle, Bruxelles, Belgique (17 avril-19 octobre)
- Pavillon du Venezuela, Biennale de Venise, Venise, Italie (14 juin-19 octobre)

1956
- Abner-Agam-Soto, Galerie Denise René, Paris (9-31 mars)

1955
- Le Mouvement (Agam, Bury, Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Jacobsen, Soto, Tinguely, Vasarely), Galerie Denise René, Paris

1951-1968
- Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris

1943-1949  
- Salon annuel d'art vénézuélien, Caracas

public collections

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium 
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil 
Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago, Chili
Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia
Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
Universal Graphic Museum, Giza, Egypt
Museum of Contemporary Art, Helinski, Finland
Fonds Départemental d’Art Contemporain, Val-de-Marne, France
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France
Fondation Vasarely, Aix-en-Provence, France
Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon, France
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, France
Musée des Beaux-Art, Pau, France
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France 
Josef Albers Museum. Quadrat, Bottrop, Germany 
Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Schlosspark Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany 
Museum Wurth, Künzelsan, Germany
Sammlung Lenz Schönberg, Munich, Germany
Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany 
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel
Fondazione Antonio y Carmela Calderara, Vacciago di Ameno, Italy 
Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan, Italy
Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, Italy
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Roma, Italy 
Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
IItami City Museum of Art, Itami, Japan
Iwaki City Art Museum, Iwaki, Japan
Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan
Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama, Japan
Hokkaido Museum of Modern art, Sapporo, Japan
Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico
Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Peter Stuyvesant Fondation, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Rijksmuseum Kröller-Miller, Otterlo, Netherlands
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Museo de Arte Latino Americano Contemporáneo de Managua, Nicaragua 
National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest, Romania
Ho-Am Art Museum, Seoul, South Korea
National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
Nammangsan Sculpture Park, Tongyeong City, South Korea
Fundación ARCO, Madrid, Spain
Fundación Cesar Manrique, Teguise, Lanzarote (Canary Islands), Spain
Museo de la Asegurada, Alicante, Spain
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö, Sweden
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Kunstmuseum, Berne, Switzerland
Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Tate Museum, London, United Kingdom
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, USA
Archer M.Huntington Art Gallery, Austin, TX, USA
Art Museum of the Americas, D.C., USA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., USA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA, USA
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY, USA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY, USA
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, USA
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK, USA 
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE, USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum , New York, NY, USA
Fundación Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela
Fundación Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela 
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas Sofía Imber, Caracas, Venezuela 
Museo de Arte moderno de Mérida Juan Astorga Anta, Mérida, Venezuela
Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela

bibliography


1997
- Butor Michel, Pierre Arnauld, Collet Marc | SOTO | Jeu de Paume

1984
- Joray Marcel, Ragon Michel, Seuphor Michel | SOTO | Editions du Griffon

  • May 31, 2023
    The Wall Street Journal — 5 PAGES

  • February 15, 2023
    The Art Newspaper — 1 PAGE

  • March 28, 2022
    THEGUIDE.ART — 2 PAGES

  • March 3, 2022
    Elephant — 10 PAGES

  • June 13, 2015
    Le Temps — 3 PAGES

A Penetrating Gaze

by Matthieu Poirier, Paris, 2014

“The constructive sculpture is not only three-dimensional, it is four-dimensional, insofar as we try to introduce the element of time. By time, I mean movement, rhythm: real movement, like illusory movement, that is perceived through indications of the flux of lines and forms in a sculpture or a painting... […] In my view, rhythm, in a work of art, is as important as space, structure and image. I hope that the future will further develop these concepts.”
Naum Gabo

The integration of time into sculpture, which the author of the Realistic Manifesto (1920) here invokes, is present in the work of Soto, from the beginning of the 1950s, in his first “optical vibrations” presented at the historic exhibition “Le Mouvement” at the Galerie Denise René in 1955. The dynamic principle, intrinsic to these “high reliefs” – to borrow the vocabulary of sculpture – is essential, especially since it can then be found in the quasi-totality of the artist's work, in which he devises endless variations, all founded on repetition and progression rather than on classical composition. There is a play between frames placed in space, on two registers separated by several centimeters: the first of these frames, irregular and transparent, consists at times of screen prints, at others of painted lines. The second frame is, in turn, set back and painted with fine black and white vertical lines. This relationship between form and content is crucial: visually, it generates a rippling and shifting effect with the slightest variation in the perspective of the observer. From this point, Soto abandoned two-dimensional painting to devote himself tirelessly to these “reliefs.” Emptiness occupies an important place, in the same way as volume does in many of his sculptures, arranged for their part in a shower of strands or colored threads fixed to a canopy and/or a base. In these volumes, which he often qualified as “virtual,” the simplicity of the material and the complexity of the intangible effect are juxtaposed, as are the neutrality of the single color and the rhythmic mobility of the vibration.
For Jesús Rafael Soto, the experience of the work takes place in the real time and space of its perception. In this sense, the term “chronochrome” translates his exploration of the temporal, rhythmic and vibratory qualities of the monochrome. Unlike his close friend Yves Klein, Soto liberates the color pigment from the stable structure of the flat painting to elevate it to the ranks of pure luminous phenomenon.
Some influences are palpable from his early years in Paris: the neo-plasticism of Piet Mondrian and the theories of László Moholy-Nagy on light and transparency, notably exhibited in Vision in Motion (1947) – Soto obtained, to have it translated, a copy of the book at an exhibition of the former Bauhaus teacher at the Galerie Arnaud in December 1952. Soto also evokes the role played, in his rejection of composition and the implementation of repetitive systems, by the serial and 12-tone music of Pierre Boulez and his reading of the book on Arnold Schönberg by René Leibowitz. “My interest was focused on works in the Bauhaus spirit and, with Klee, on works that explore perspective from several points of view” Soto affirmed in 1974 on the subject of his early passions. Indeed, if they rely on a system, the material elements of his works seem to vary or begin to vibrate according to the direction from which they are considered, as much as they arouse a motor response in their observer. Unlike the wind for Alexander Calder or electricity for Jean Tinguely, the human is the driving force for Soto, even without any manipulation of the object. This aspect of the work, strictly speaking “dynamogenic,” was misunderstood when it emerged – as it was with other artists such as Heinz Mack, Julio Le Parc or Bridget Riley. Let us recall that, since the 1960s, Soto is widely regarded as the hero of an art described alternately as “kinetic” or “optic” – which the artist, anxious to assert his uniqueness, denied regularly. Thus he declined the invitation to participate in “The Responsive Eye” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965, on the grounds that the purely “optical” paintings of Victor Vasarely occupied too much importance in the programming. Soto's approach, nonetheless, belongs to what the curator William Seitz called “perceptual abstraction,” that is to say a non-figurative art form that falls within the purview of phenomenology and addresses spatial and temporal perception as a medium in itself.

“Chronochrome” echoes the exhibition dedicated to the artist by the ARC-Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1969. In the catalog, Jean Clay emphasizes the highly spiritual dimension of “radical dematerialization” conducted by the artist. He cites Malevich, who took on, more than 50 years earlier, the theoretical framework that, he said, ruled the yet very young field of abstract painting: “Thus, affirms Jean Clay, is realized [the] prophecy [of Malevich] in 1919: 'he who makes abstract constructions, and who bases them on the mutual relations of colors in the painting, he is still trapped in the world of aesthetics, rather than immersing himself in philosophy'.” From the radical abstraction of the constructivist to that of the kineticist, it is necessary to escape this logic of pictorial closure: the work must be “open”, to take the expression formulated by Umberto Eco about kinetic art in particular. Jean Clay seems to find the ultimate incarnation of this logic in Soto's Penetrables (from 1967). These are showers of fine nylon tubes, translucent and colored, in which viewers are invited to move about freely and to experience continuous contact. Jean Clay presents this logic as an important development of the “ambivalent space” that emerged in the early Plexiglas reliefs of the 1950s. The modest dimensions of the older works in no way inhibit this visual and spatial impact. On the contrary, asserts Clay, Soto obtained, “by the play of differently angled stripes, surprising effects of varying gravity, as if each plate corresponded to the atmosphere of a different planet, as if each series of stripes responded differently to the laws of universal gravitation [...]. One step to the side, and a whole set of different levitations is set in motion, creating the unsettling sensation that contradictory physical rules prevail simultaneously on the micro-space Soto has trapped.” A psychophysiological experience (and not an imaginary one) of weightlessness is at play, in the context of a universe ruled by “non-Euclidean” forces, that is to say, beyond rational apprehension.
To draw a parallel, the author cites Paul Klee, who “loved to confront in one painting the most divergent perspectives, to multiply the most contradictory vanishing points, in order to enclose in the surface of his work a confusing, vertiginous, logically elusive space as the eye wandered like in a dream, never finding the landmarks of real life.” However, the optical space of the two artists differs on one point: that of Klee, “ripped from the imagination,” would only be a “translation” of real space in the fixed painting format, that anyone could appreciate comfortably, from “the floor of a gallery or an apartment” – “This deliberate destruction of spatial order, born of the artist's sensory experience, was however communicated to us via a page or a two-dimensional canvas that fit perfectly into our familiar sense of space.” The work can no longer content itself with an autonomous and closed representation; it must question the stability of consciousness: “The work [of Soto] no longer takes place beyond reality, it is no longer a window to the imagination, a porthole through which the eye, from a familiar spot, could for a moment savor the vertigo once experienced by the artist. Instead, it bites into the real, it impinges on our sense of space, it calls into question our idiosyncrasy.” Thus, the idea of painting as “window on the world” formulated by Leon Battista Alberti (De Pictura, 1434) seems too vast to the critic, who from then on prefers the term “porthole.” But this small ship's window is more similar, in the description given by the author, to a peephole in a door that one imagines to be closed and that only offers a monocular and unsettled vision of reality. In contrast to this sense of mistrust and impulse control, Soto invites viewers of his works to dive fully into the flow of reality.
Soto develops a new relationship with the work, which involves much more than simply increasing the size. It is an opening, a spatial expansion of the object: the latter, classically understood as opaque and closed unto itself, becomes an immersive and changing matrix. It is in this context that concepts specific to architecture emerge. Some of the features of the work, such as temporality, multiplicity of viewpoints, paradoxical materiality or the architectural promenade, refuse to be captured by a mental or reprographic image, considered in its fixed state. For Rudolf Arnheim, these qualities further emphasize the limits of our visual perception of the environment as they rely on the power and control of the eye:

“The mind reconstitutes, from a multiplicity of views, an image of the three-dimensional objective form, the sculpture or building in question. [...] Therefore, an architectural work is an object that nobody has ever seen and will ever see in its entirety. It is a mental image, synthesized with varying degrees of success, from partial visions.”

Note that in the case of Soto's Penetrable, for example, the “mental image” is never completely abolished – it persists – because what the audience discovers at first, before entering it, is the general form of the supporting structure. The latter is extremely simple: it consists of a square or rectangular canopy supported by pillars at a height of about four meters, in which are set, according to a fixed grid, the thousands of fine plastic tubes. But this point of view, from the outside, is quite limited and partial.
Henri Bergson, a few decades before, described the expanded perceptive faculty as a key component of consciousness. Wishing to challenge those who, from Zenon to Kant by way of “metaphysicians in general,” made “of change a crystallization of perception, a solidification with an eye to practice,” Bergson advocates a kinetic perception, alive or even, to use one of his keywords, “vitalist.” “What we should have to do is grasp change and duration in their original mobility [...] through the extension and revivification of our faculty of perceiving, perhaps also (though for the moment it is not a question of rising to such heights) through a prolongation which privileged souls will give to intuition, we could re-establish continuity in our knowledge as a whole – a continuity which would no longer be hypothetical and constructed, but experienced and lived.” The terms used by Bergson, as well as the modalities employed by Soto, are explicit: it is time to break the bonds that have too long kept perception – and therefore art itself – away from the continuum of reality as it is understood by modern physics: a phenomenal, spatial, structural and temporal unit.
Soto's Penetrables propose a specific experience of duration similar to that advocated by Henri Bergson throughout his oeuvre: “to respond to those who see in this 'real' duration something, a hint of the ineffable and the mysterious, I say it is the clearest thing in the world: real duration is what we always called time, but time perceived as indivisible.” For it is not about adding images, points of view and fixed positions, but rather to make of them a continuous synthesis.

This consciousness in Soto of a non-Euclidean world, dynamic, unlimited and impossible to grasp by the senses alone, which would depend largely on the perceptual modalities that we refer to in these pages, predates the 1960s. Pierre Francastel detected their inception in the early 20th century, which he attributes to modern science and mathematics:

“[...] The fundamental opposition between the rational and the geometric on the one hand, and the needs of the soul and the imagination on the other, has disappeared as a result of the development of irrational principles in physics and chemistry as well as in mathematics, and as a result of the sensory understanding in art of a non-Euclidean universe. The introduction of the fourth dimension, time, in giving us the opportunity to experiment and represent multiple points of view as well as simultaneity, broke the old limitation of our senses and thrust humanity, on every level, into the conquest of a new universe.”

Francastel chooses to extend his analysis to Sigfried Giedion. The latter, in his book Space, Time and Architecture (1941), indeed presents a parallel between the work of mathematician Hermann Minkowski and the beginnings of Cubism and Futurism. Similarly, for Francastel, developments in knowledge provoke the rupture of the “old limitation of our feelings.” Therefore, the artist, through his creations, must respond to this new multidimensional regime of visual experience. At the turn of the 1960s, this is precisely what some artists concerned with perceptual tendency would focus on, no longer in terms of the painting and its imagery, but the temporal and spatial variability of the live experience. But this expansion, which others would describe as “baroque,” called for, as a necessary counterpoint, an intense reduction of physical materials. Often the phenomenon fits in the surface of a canvas, in a simple box, most often painted black to disappear in an exhibition hall plunged in darkness. Consequently, this dark room may itself become the box and the medium of the work.

By its transparency and incessant palpitation, Soto’s work also offers a unique resonance with the Trübe of Goethe. In his work, the philosopher states that “[...] if turbidity is the weakening of transparency and the beginning of corporeality, we can express it as a collection of differences, that is to say, of transparency and non-transparency, which results in an uneven amalgam, which we designate by the expression arising out of the alteration of the unit, of the repose and of the connection of such parts, which are then in disorder and confusion, that is to say the Trübe [turbidity].” Goethe, as Maurice Élie recalls, studies these disordered environments in the chapter of the Traité which deals with physical colors of the “first class,” that is to say, the colors formed by the combination of light and darkness through mist, vapor or smoke. By its character as an intermediate medium, Trübe is equally opaque and transparent. It allows us to describe a phenomenon of balance between being and nothingness, between the vibratory unit of the lumino-chromatic field and the chaotic mobility of its elements. As such, many works of Soto’s known as “virtual volumes” actually amass the atmospheric qualities of diaphanousness such as Aristotle describes them in his Meteorology: “The Sun also, seen through fog or smoke, appears red.” Similarly, in his Minor Treatises on Natural History, he contemplates the scope, at once floating, indirect and corporal, of lumino-chromatic presence: “the nature of light, he said, is in its indefinite diaphanousness. As to the limit of diaphanousness, which is in the body, it is obvious that it has some reality, and, according to the facts, it is clear that this is where color lies, because color is at the limit of bodies or is their limit.” With Soto, color appears only through its “indeterminate” dissemination, into which the gaze plunges. Moreover, as a precursor to the reliefs, volumes and other “penetrables” of Soto’s, the painter Franz Marc, in his “Aphorisms” (1914), associates with art certain discoveries in optics, and senses, in the modern gaze, a similar capacity to penetrate the visible, even if it is completely material and opaque:

“The art to come will be the incarnation of our scientific credo. We break down prudish and deceptive nature and recompose it according to our own design. We see through the matter, and the day is probably not far off when we will penetrate it like air. The material is a power that man still tolerates, but he no longer recognizes. Instead of just considering the world, we X-ray it. No mystic could reach, in his hours of greatest ecstasy when the sky seemed to open before his eyes, the total abstraction of modern thought that no obstacle shall impede.”

This fantasy of total visual power, where all tactile and physical resistance of an object is abolished, places nature (described as “prudish and deceptive”) under its control and encourages the observer, incidentally, to comprehend the plays of superpositions and chromatic transparencies in the works of the painter. These in turn are motivated by the discoveries of modern optics: matter, “X-rayed” by a superior eye, becomes penetrable as the air, and color is, like in his most abstract paintings, atmospheric, total and mystical. Marc uses simple geometric shapes, but in a kaleidoscopic manner, immediately descended from Analytical Cubism and so characteristic of German Expressionism and the Orphism of Robert Delaunay: the planes are as fragmented as they are layered and the colors interpenetrate them in the virtual thickness of the pictorial layer.


These ambulatory environments demonstrate Soto's choice to focus on a liberated field of vision and of ambulation; the observer, like an actor without a script or a dancer without choreography, gets lost – at least as far as he find himself, sensorially and socially, forgotten in the object-painting.
The works gathered today at Galerie Perrotin can be puzzling, as minimalist in their workmanship as they are elusive when approached in person. The eye, – but sometimes also the body, in a Penetrable, for example – subtly trapped, can wander endlessly in fragmented areas, constantly oscillating between volume and plane, object and image. By invading our perceptual space without ever letting us fully grasp it, a work of Soto’s, as Henri Bergson says, is an object that nobody has ever seen and will ever see in its entirety. Whether via a wall relief, a sculpture in the round, or an environment, the artist invites us to a singular experience, renewed with each contemplation: one of incompleteness, a space-time continuum whose story and image will always fail to resolve. This is perhaps the primary quality of the Soto’s staccato monochromes, which makes him not only a major player in the history of abstraction, but also of modern and contemporary art.

2023

ELMGREEN & DRAGSET, JR, Koak, Jean-Marie APPRIOU, Iván ARGOTE, Daniel ARSHAM, Genesis BELANGER, Anna-Eva BERGMAN, Sophie CALLE, Julian CHARRIÈRE, Johan CRETEN, Jean-Philippe DELHOMME, Mathilde DENIZE, Lionel ESTÈVE, Jens FÄNGE, Bernard FRIZE, Laurent GRASSO, Vivian GREVEN, Hans HARTUNG, Charles HASCOËT, Thilo HEINZMANN, John HENDERSON, Leslie HEWITT, Gregor HILDEBRANDT, Dora JERIDI, Susumu KAMIJO, Bharti KHER, Klara KRISTALOVA, Georges MATHIEU, Takashi MURAKAMI, Sophia NARRETT, Katherina OLSCHBAUR, Danielle ORCHARD, Jean-Michel OTHONIEL, Paola PIVI, Gabriel RICO, Claude RUTAULT, Emily Mae SMITH, Jesús Rafael SOTO, Josh SPERLING, Tatiana TROUVÉ, Xavier VEILHAN, Bernar VENET, Pieter VERMEERSCH, LEE Bae, QI Zhuo, SHIM Moon-Seup

October 16, 2023 - November 10, 2023

paris

60 RUE DE TURENNE 75003 PARIS
2BIS AVENUE MATIGNON 75008 PARIS

Matignon - October+ group show

2022

Jesús Rafael SOTO

March 5, 2022 - April 16, 2022

new york

130 Orchard Street

Materia y vibración, 1956 - 1974

2015

Pierre PAULIN, Mike BOUCHET, CESAR, John DE ANDREA, Tara DONOVAN, ELMGREEN & DRAGSET, Laurent GRASSO, Candida HOFER, KAWS, Bertrand LAVIER, Heinz MACK, Monir Shahroudy FARMANFARMAIAN, Jesús Rafael SOTO, Xavier VEILHAN

October 22, 2015 - December 19, 2015

paris

76 RUE DE TURENNE 75003 PARIS

Paulin, Paulin, Paulin

Jesús Rafael SOTO

January 15, 2015 - February 21, 2015

new york

909 Madison Avenue New York

Chronochrome

curated by Matthieu Poirier

Jesús Rafael SOTO

January 10, 2015 - February 28, 2015

paris

76 RUE DE TURENNE 75003 PARIS

Chronochrome

curated by Matthieu Poirier

Jesús Rafael SOTO "Chronochrome" at Galerie Perrotin, Paris & New York

Jesús Rafael SOTO "Chronochrome" at Galerie...

Jesús Rafael SOTO

"Sphère Lutétia"Interview de Jesús Rafael Soto - Paris, 1996

"Sphère Lutétia" Interview de Jesús Rafael...

Jesús Rafael SOTO

Interview of Jesus Rafael Soto in 1996 during the exhibition "Les Champs de la sculpture"

Interview of Jesus Rafael Soto in 1996 during the ...

Jesús Rafael SOTO