Eg. 1-2 Yellow-Grey Positive 1973

Victor Vasarely, born in 1906, was a Hungarian-French artist who worked with geometric shapes. Thinkers like Clement Greenberg championed abstraction as a universal visual language, a movement which moved in tandem with the rise of technology and the social and cultural shifts after World War II. Looking at "Eg. 1-2 Yellow-Grey Positive" from his "Vega" period, note the surface undulations and color modulations that give the piece a disorienting, almost dizzying effect. Op Art sought to disrupt the stability of the picture plane and challenge our perceptions. Vasarely said his art was one, "for all." What does it mean to create art for the masses? Who gets to decide what ‘universal’ looks like? The piece is a mirror reflecting our collective aspirations and anxieties in a rapidly changing world. It is a bold statement of visual democracy and technological optimism.