Earlier this month I had the good fortune to visit Paris and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne. While there, I had the best kind of close encounter: Soto’s kinetic creation, Pénétrable BBL Bleu.
Soto’s striking installation was on an open level of the Frank Gehry building, which suited it perfectly.
In case you didn’t know, Jesús Rafael Soto was a Venezuelan artist who was best known for his kinetic sculptures and large scale optical installations. Born in 1923 in Ciudad Bolivar, Soto remained in Venezuela for his formative years, before moving to Paris in 1950 where he would remain for the rest of his life, while keeping a workshop in Caracas from 1975 onwards.
Very early on, he attached himself to post-war avant-garde modernism and became part of the abstract art circles. His participation in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in 1951, followed by his involvement in the celebrated exhibition Le Mouvement at the Galerie Denise René in Paris in 1955 alongside Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, and Victor Vasarely, bears witness to this commitment.
By the late 1960s, Soto was known as a leader in kinetic art, with works that were remarkable for their illusions of sensory vibrations.
Soto’s Pénétrable BBL Bleu is what I saw and experienced in Paris.
You can read more about it here:
I loved experiencing this installation!
