Julio Le Parc, maître de l’art cinétique aux couleurs hypnotiques, est mort à 97 ans
Julio Le Parc, the Franco-Argentine master of kinetic and Op Art, died on May 30 in Paris at age 97. A founding member of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV) in 1960, he spent six decades exploring light, movement, and perception, creating immersive environments, suspended plexiglass spheres, and optical devices that made the viewer an active participant. His death comes just before the opening of a major retrospective, "Julio Le Parc - Light, Colour, Action," at Tate Modern in London on June 11, 2026, which will feature 60 of his works through May 3, 2027.
Le Parc’s death marks the loss of a radical thinker who democratized art by prioritizing sensory experience over the artist’s singular genius. He won the Grand Prix international de peinture at the 1966 Venice Biennale, cementing his status as a leading avant-garde figure, and his works are held by MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and Tate. His playful yet philosophical approach—using light as material and movement as a perceptual tool—has seen a resurgence in the 2010s and 2020s, making his posthumous Tate retrospective a fitting tribute to a career that challenged how art is seen and experienced.