Jesús Rafael Soto studied Fine Arts at the School of Art in Caracas between 1942 and 1947. During his student days, he embarked on his professional career with a post-impressionist painting exhibition at the Official Art Salon in Caracas, but the works shown there were far removed from the style of his later oeuvre. When he completed his studies, he was appointed director of the Maracaibo Fine Arts School. In 1950 he moved to Paris, encouraged by some of his fellow students who already lived there; and he remained there from then on. In the French capital, he began to search for his own style with the intention of turning away from figurative art, although his intention was not to ‘stop being a painter’.
Soto is one of the most outstanding proponents of op art and international kinetic art. He focused on movement; his works envelop and include viewers, giving them an active, decisive role in the final outcome of his output: the work does not exist without a viewer. Soto produced pieces activated by the movement of visitors, generating a kinetic illusion by means of overlapping sections or strokes produced with wires that dance on striped backgrounds. In this, he showed his goal of stripping matter down to its essence: energy. His Penetrables are installations in which his knowledge of and concern about matter are summarised, embodied and condensed. Viewers can enter them and become part of the piece. In his own words, ‘It is the revelation (the Penetrable) of responsive space, eternally filled by the purest structural values, such as energy, time and movement’. In short; a reality reduced to a basic structure.
Major exhibitions by Jesús Rafael Soto included shows at the Free Art Workshop (Caracas, 1949); the Aujourd’hui Gakeru, Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels, 1957); the Caracas Fine Art Museum (1957, 1959, 1964, 1967, 1971 and 1992); the Iris Clert Gallery (Paris, 1959); the Müller Gallery (Stuttgart, Germany, 1964); the Kunsthalle Bern (Berne, 1968); the Akron Art Center (Ohio, United States, 1971); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, 1974); the Simón Bolívar University (Caracas, 1980); The Hokin Gallery (Miami, United States, 1985); the Theo Gallery (Madrid and Barcelona, 1990); the Maracay Mario Abreu Contemporary Art Museum (Maracay, Venezuela, 1993); the Seomi Gallery (Seoul, 1994); the Telefónica Art Exhibition Hall (Santiago de Chile, 1999); the Metropolitan Cultural Centre (Quito, 2003); the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (Curitiba, Brazil, 2005); the NYU Grey Art Gallery (New York, 2012); the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 1979 and 2013) and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2019). He won the National Painting Award in Venezuela in 1960. In 1973 the Jesús Soto Foundation Modern Art Museum was opened in Ciudad Bolívar (Venezuela).
Jesús Rafael Soto studied Fine Arts at the School of Art in Caracas between 1942 and 1947. During his student days, he embarked on his professional career with a post-impressionist painting exhibition at the Official Art Salon in Caracas, but the works shown there were far removed from the style of his later oeuvre. When he completed his studies, he was appointed director of the Maracaibo Fine Arts School. In 1950 he moved to Paris, encouraged by some of his fellow students who already lived there; and he remained there from then on. In the French capital, he began to search for his own style with the intention of turning away from figurative art, although his intention was not to ‘stop being a painter’.
Soto is one of the most outstanding proponents of op art and international kinetic art. He focused on movement; his works envelop and include viewers, giving them an active, decisive role in the final outcome of his output: the work does not exist without a viewer. Soto produced pieces activated by the movement of visitors, generating a kinetic illusion by means of overlapping sections or strokes produced with wires that dance on striped backgrounds. In this, he showed his goal of stripping matter down to its essence: energy. His Penetrables are installations in which his knowledge of and concern about matter are summarised, embodied and condensed. Viewers can enter them and become part of the piece. In his own words, ‘It is the revelation (the Penetrable) of responsive space, eternally filled by the purest structural values, such as energy, time and movement’. In short; a reality reduced to a basic structure.
Major exhibitions by Jesús Rafael Soto included shows at the Free Art Workshop (Caracas, 1949); the Aujourd’hui Gakeru, Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels, 1957); the Caracas Fine Art Museum (1957, 1959, 1964, 1967, 1971 and 1992); the Iris Clert Gallery (Paris, 1959); the Müller Gallery (Stuttgart, Germany, 1964); the Kunsthalle Bern (Berne, 1968); the Akron Art Center (Ohio, United States, 1971); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, 1974); the Simón Bolívar University (Caracas, 1980); The Hokin Gallery (Miami, United States, 1985); the Theo Gallery (Madrid and Barcelona, 1990); the Maracay Mario Abreu Contemporary Art Museum (Maracay, Venezuela, 1993); the Seomi Gallery (Seoul, 1994); the Telefónica Art Exhibition Hall (Santiago de Chile, 1999); the Metropolitan Cultural Centre (Quito, 2003); the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (Curitiba, Brazil, 2005); the NYU Grey Art Gallery (New York, 2012); the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 1979 and 2013) and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2019). He won the National Painting Award in Venezuela in 1960. In 1973 the Jesús Soto Foundation Modern Art Museum was opened in Ciudad Bolívar (Venezuela).