Untitled

Victor Vasarely

1967

screenprint on paper

14 7/8" x 10 3/4"

Like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, the notched shapes in Victor Vasarely’s screenprint seem capable of interlocking. Yet the ability of the eye to visualize a stable pattern is hindered by the distractions of vibrant color contrasts and by figure/ground reversals. The color forms are precisely arranged so that we alternately read them as figures on a gray ground or, in reverse, with the gray negative space between the forms reading as figures resembling Greek crosses with circular end points. If, from another perspective, we could push all the shapes together, a multicolor checkerboard would appear, with colored and gray disks. This print comes from a portfolio entitled Code, the word itself inviting us to decipher the relationships of the various parts to a larger whole. Is there a governing rule for the sequence of color combinations? As the mind tries to sort things out, the eye gets caught up in confusions of color and shape.

Credit

Museum Purchase Fund