Franco-Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc, a pioneer of kinetic and Op art whose interactive works presaged contemporary participatory art, died in Paris on May 30 at age 97. The last surviving cofounder of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), Le Parc spent nearly seven decades creating works that harnessed light, color, movement, and reflection, completed by viewer participation. He won the International Grand Prize for Painting at the 1966 Venice Biennale, was expelled from France for his protest involvement, and continued experimenting with virtual reality into his nineties.
Le Parc's death marks the end of an era for the radical collective GRAV, which rejected the notion of the singular artist genius and the passive spectator. His democratizing approach to art—using everyday materials and engaging the viewer as co-creator—influenced generations of artists from Jesús-Rafael Soto to Olafur Eliasson and Jeppe Hein. Despite being marginalized in France for decades after declining a solo show at the Musée d’Art Moderne, Le Parc maintained a global presence and his work remains highly relevant to contemporary discussions about interactivity and audience participation in art.