Station: [6] Victor Vasarely


Take a look at the hexagonal sculpture mounted on a post. What do you see? A large cube with the front corner missing? A multi-coloured plane with a cube about to drop out of the middle? Or simply a grid dividing the surface into red, blue and green diamond shapes?

The surface of the sculpture appears to shift. Depending on the area you’re looking at, new perspectives form, three-dimensional cubes appear and seem to project from the plane. 

The sculpture, called Hexagon-S, is a game of optical illusions, created by the Franco-Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely.

In the early 1960s, Vasarely was one of the best-known representatives of Op Art, also known as optical art. In Op Art, geometric forms displaced everything organic. Vasarely used modern industrial paints for his colours, and his work reflects the period’s enthusiasm for technology.

Yet human beings are still at the heart of Vasarely's work. It’s about the act of seeing itself. The viewer's gaze becomes confused by abstract patterns of form and their illusionistic effect. The surfaces of the pictures look as if they’re in motion.

It’s for the individual viewer to decide how they see things in a dynamic world.

This connection between art, humanity and the modern world was one of the ideas Victor Vasarely brought with him to Goslar. Here, he was awarded the Kaiserring in 1978, the same year this museum was founded. Vasarely signed the visitors’ book at the Mönchehaus Museum with the statement: "Art is for everyone".

 

Foto 1: © Sascha Engel, Goslar

Foto 2: © Mönchehaus Museum Goslar