Interférences en bleu et jaune (No. 642) 1963

Antonio Asis made this painting, "Interférences en bleu et jaune", which, by the way, is a great title, using a playful rhythm of blue and yellow circles to set off a chain reaction of visual disturbances. I love this idea of art as interference; it gets right to the heart of what abstraction can do, which is to mess with our perceptions. The surface is flat, and the paint looks evenly applied. It’s hard to tell how the circles were made, but I imagine Asis used a stencil or some other kind of mechanical aid to get those clean lines. It’s the kind of painting that looks simple but is actually incredibly precise, and that precision gives it a kind of optical buzz, an active seeing. The way the circles overlap and interact reminds me a bit of Bridget Riley's Op Art. Like Riley, Asis is interested in how we see, in the way our eyes can be tricked and delighted by patterns and colors. It's about the joy of seeing, the ongoing conversation, and exchange of ideas that makes art so endlessly fascinating.