Galerie Denise René, Paris
Private collection
Christie's New York, May 28-29, 2008, lot 70
Private collection, New York. Seduced by the new aesthetics tendencies that were developing in Europe during the 1950s, Luis Tomasello joined a group of young Latin American kinetic artists that had recently moved to Paris. By 1957, Tomasello had permanently settled in France, and along with other artists such as Martha Boto, Hugo Demarco, and Julio Le Parc began experimenting with constructivist abstract work and kinetic and optical art. Tomasello was a key artist for Parisian gallerist Denise René, who exhibited his work in the groundbreaking Op Art show La Lumière et le Mouvement (1967). Tomasello was also one of ninety-nine artists to be exhibited in New York's Museum of Modern Art 1965 exhibition entitled The Responsive Eye. Reflexión No. 75 completed in 1961 includes all of the hallmarks of the artist's most well-known period. This work exists less as an object to be examined than as a generator of perceptual responses in the eye and mind of the viewer. The deliberate placement of small white cubes with orange highlights placed against a stark white panel generate harmonic shadows and bright explosions of color that playfully interact and move in a continuous dance. Tomasello is able to translate light into a transformative visual experience. The work lives, vibrates, and creates a lyrical form that stimulates the viewer both sensually and mentally.