Venezuelan-born artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (1923-2019) has been described as “a great thinker of the 20th century in the realm of color.” On the occasion of Cruz-Diez’s centenary year, Galleria Continua / San Gimignano presents “Carlos Cruz-Diez: L’Euforia del Colore,” opening on May 27. It will be on view until September 10, 2023, at GALLERIA CONTINUA/San Gimignano, located at Via del Castello 11, San Gimignano (SI), Italy (open from Monday to Sunday 10am-1pm and 2-7pm.) 

Carlos Cruz-Diez is one of the main protagonists of contemporary art. His research and his writings make him the last great thinker of the 20th century in the realm of color. His work has revealed a new understanding of chromatic phenomena in art, expanding its perceptual universe considerably.

Cruz-Diez proposes color as an autonomous and evolutive reality where the implication of our senses reveals chromatic events as they develop. Events that take place in space and time, without anecdotes or references, stripped of any symbols, past or future, in a continuous present. 

Works by Carlos Cruz-Diez encourage a different knowledge relationship where the viewers can discover their capacity to create and destroy color with their own perceptual means while finding an emotional resonance through their personal experience. 

Carlos Cruz-Diez describes himself as an artist applying the discipline of a scientist “because the supports that I have managed to structure are a source of surprise and imponderables… In my works, nothing is left to chance; everything is intended, planned, and programmed. Liberty and emotions are only present when choosing colors, a task with only one self-imposed restriction: to be efficient in what I want to say. It is a combination of both rationale and emotion. I don’t get inspired: I reflect.” 

Carlos Cruz-Diez’s body of work, based on three conditions of color: subtractive, additive and reflective is developed through eight lines of research: Couleur Additive, Physichromie, Induction Chromatique, Chromointerférence, Transchromie, Chromosaturation, Chromoscope and Couleur à l’Espace. Each of them responding to different behaviors of color. 

His works are in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Tate Modern, London; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne; Geffen Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk.

See sangimignano@galleriacontinua.com | www.galleriacontinua.com

For more on the artist, see https://www.cruzdiezartfoundation.org/old-carlos-cruz-diez

[Shown above, photo by Lorenzo Fiaschi: CARLOS CRUZ-DIEZ ‘Environnement Chromointerférent’ 1974-2018, (detail), video, variable dimensions. Special project GALLERIA CONTINUA & ARDIAN. © Carlos Cruz-Diez / Bridgeman Images, 2023.]