Jesús Rafael Soto

Jesús Rafael Soto was born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. He was the eldest of four children born to Emma Soto and Luis Garcia Parra, a violin player. From a very young age, Soto wanted to help support his family in any way he could, and art was the most interesting to him. He picked up the guitar and also began recreating famous pieces of art that he found in various books, magazines, and almanacs. At 16, Soto started his serious artistic career when he began to create and paint posters for the cinemas in Ciudad Bolívar. "At that age," says Soto, "the only artists that I knew were the lettering painters. My family was very happy. I could earn some money, make lettering till the end of my days. Nobody looked further than that..." In 1938, Soto participated in a student group affiliated with surrealism ideas and published poems in the local journal that scandalized society. In the group, Soto learned about automatic writing and charcoal drawing, "I drew heads, portraits, I had a great technique. Finally, there were people who made a petition, the bishop asked to see it, and he signed it. I got a scholarship…"

In 1942, he received a scholarship to study artistic training at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Artes Aplicadas (Plastic and Applied Arts School) in Caracas, finishing his studies in 1947. Once there, he took classes in "pure art" and the "training course for instructors in art education history." The director of the school, Antonio Edmundo Monsanto, was instrumental to Soto’s career as he often brought inspirations from foreign countries to his students, including the latest from the avant-garde: cubism. Soto was also influenced by other very important Venezuelan artists, including Omar Carreño, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Narsico Deboug, Dora Hersen, Mateo Manaure, Luis Guevara, Pascual Navarro, Mercedes Pardo, and Alejandro Otero. "When I got in the Fine Arts School," says Soto, "the first thing I saw was the reproduction of a dead nature of Braque". This image caused such impact on him because, "...the color started to separate off the form," and because of the multiplicity of the viewing points that he wanted to represent.

In the beginning, Soto painted post-impressionist works, later getting interested in Cubism. After getting in touch with Malevich, Mondrian, and the constructivists, Soto started to experiment with optical phenomena and op art. He then began to make art that was more than just pictures.

In the 1950s, Soto experimented with serial art: the repetition of formal elements in the plan, the depersonalization of the work, and the revelation of the relativity of the vision. He achieved the reproduction of vibratory phenomena and, above all, the rupture of notions like composition and equilibrium. Making the work of art a fragment of an infinite reality, which could be repeated without varying its essential structure. Without a beginning, an end, up, down, right, left. Helped by notions from the mathematics and music fields, Soto makes his serial art.

The next step in Soto's works was incorporating time and real movement through the treatment of the space. The work should be an autonomous object, where "real" situations were put into play, and not a plan where a determinate vision was projected. At the same time that the spectator was moving in front of the work of art, to obtain from it its optical vibrational effects, time and real movement were being incorporated. In his Dos cuadrados en el espacio (1953), Soto began a series retaking the approaches of Malevich, especially about adopting the square as the "only valid form". In his Desplazamiento de un cuadro transparente (1953–54), he created a spatial effect on a plane surface that was later developed in a three-dimensional way, superimposing two or more Plexiglas sheets, transparent but painted with straight or curved drawings that changed the way they were seen as the spectator moved, inviting the participation of the public. Using superimposed Plexiglas surfaces, Soto developed optical effects that appeared to move as viewers changed position in front of the work. In 1955, Soto participated in the exhibition Le Mouvement at Galerie Denise René in Paris. Other artists being shown were Yaacov Agam, Marcel Duchamp, and Victor Vasarely. The exhibition prompted the publication of the 'Yellow Manifest' about kinetic art and the visual research involving spectators and stimulus. The kinetic art movement gained force in Europe and Latin America after this exhibition.

As a result of the optical vibratory states that Soto achieves from the superposition of plans, a new situation appears: the outbreak of the solid body, its dematerialization in our retina, phenomena that are produced for the first time in Permutación (1956). In Estructuras cinéticas de elementos geométricos (1955-57) and Armonía transformable (1956), a new element is added that was relegated in his research: color. It is about the superposition of different plexiglass planes, where color frames are inscribed, introducing new vibratory elements. The real division of the plane that had previously undergone an unfolding is produced here. Its structure already suggests a true spatial dimension, as a consequence of the equivalence of its obverse and its reverse. The situation becomes more complex, due to the multiplication of different lines, colors, and directions. Plexiglass, a medium that had provided the possibility of conforming aleatory states, begins to be an impediment, and the search for a new way of materializing vibration starts.

All of Soto's work, from start to end, answers to the same necessity of materializing his concept of the world as an impossible reality to measure on a human scale; a vision where energy and space are vital as essential situations inside nature. To reveal these situations in all of their complex dimensions was the impulse that has fed his plastic research. "When you enter a penetrable, you have the sensation of being in a light swirl, a total plenitude of vibrations. The Penetrable is a kind of concretization of this plenitude in which I make people move and make them feel the body of space. Is a way of materializing what exist, is an immaterial state, one state that for me isn't irreal, but a reality. Reality exists all over the place and fill all the universe. Emptiness doesn't exist, anywhere. This is my basic line of thought."

'Soto would set the bases for an art that transcended the conventional parameters of painting and sculpture.' By inviting the spectator to participate in the work, instead of merely looking from a distance, Soto more deeply engages the audience and makes the experience more intriguing and stimulating. Soto had a partner in this movement. On the other hand, his counterpart, Carlos Cruz-Diez, focused more on the way colours are perceived by the eye. One of his series called Fisicromias (Physiochromies) shows how coloured light is perceived and displaced through one's eyes. Another artist who participated in this style was Alejandro Otero. His series Colortions (Rhythmicolors) combines the same concepts of the perception of colour in the eye and participants' movement with the work, but gives greater attention to how the colours are controlled with vertical lines. Jesús Rafael Soto died in 2005 in Paris and is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse.

Like many other Venezuelan artists from this time, Jesus Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez considered their works a response to what they felt the problems were in the art of their time. They wanted to express a more universal process of art. Because of this, their works are contributions that continue to enrich the art world. Their willingness to contribute and put themselves in a more universal approach to art was a direct rebuttal to the traditional views of art in Latin America. With Venezuela, this was a way for them to add what they felt was missing in the art of Latin America. Painting, in history, was an act of responding to the situation at hand in the mind of Soto and Cruz-Diez. "Everything else was academic, anachronistic, or as Alejandro Otero said, 'the work of a man hiding behind time.'"

1957: "Structure cinétique", Ciudad Universitaria, Caracas, Venezuela 1958: "Wall of Brussels", I.V.I.C., Caracas, Venezuela (made for Universal Exhibition of Brussels, 1958). "Tour de Bruxelles", I.V.I.C., Caracas, Venezuela (made for Universal Exhibition of Brussels, 1958). 1967: "Volume suspendu", Expo 67, Pavililon of Venezuela, Montreal, Canada (ephemeral environment in the pavilion made by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva for intégration of Soto's monumental artwork, Universal Exhibition in Montréal, 1967). 1968-69: Ephemeral Environment made for the end year festivities, Place Furstenberg, Paris, France. 1969: "Mur cinétique" (2), UNESCO, Paris, France. "Progresión a centro móvil", Torre Capriles, Caracas, Venezuela. "Paralelas vibrantes", Torre Capriles, Caracas, Venezuela. "Volumen cinético", Torre Capriles, Caracas, Venezuela. 1970: Hall, Deutsche Bundesbank, Francfort, Germany. "Extension et progression dans l'eau", Rethel college, The Ardennes, France. Hall, Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie, Rennes, France. 1971: "Vibración amarilla", I.V.I.C., Caracas, Venezuela. 1972: Hall, pharmaceutical Laboratory Sandoz, Basle, Switzerland. 1972-82: Complejo Cultural Teresa Carreño, Caracas, Venezuela. 1973: "El gran mural de las escrituras", Banco Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela. "Extension et progression dans l'eau", Paseo Ciencias, Maracaibo, Venezuela. 1973-95: "Penetrable", Parque García Sanabría, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. 1974: "Mur cinétique", International duOffice for Work, Geneva, Switzerland. 1975: Hall and restaurant of the personnel, Régie Renault, Boulogne- Billancourt, France. "Progression", CES (college), Moreuil, France. 1977: " Suspended Virtual Volume", Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto, Canada. "Mural Cavendes", Edificio Cavendes, Caracas, Venezuela. 1979: "Environnement", Reception, Cars-Motors, Caracas, Venezuela. "Gran escritura negra", Banco de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela. "Volumen virtual suspendido", Centro Banaven, Caracas, Venezuela. "Interférences vibrantes", West Deutsche Landesbank, Dortmund, Germany. 1982: "Progresión suspendida amarilla y blanca", Entidad de Ahorro y Préstamo, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. 1983: "Progresión amarilla", Metro Chacaíto, Caracas, Venezuela. "Cubo virtual azul y negro", Metro Chacaíto, Caracas, Venezuela. 1984: "Extensión azul y blanca", Seguros La Seguridad, Caracas, Venezuela. "Volumen virtual polícromo", Deutsche Eisenbahn Versicherung, Cologne, Germany. 1985: "Esfera Japón", Edificio Banco Lara, Caracas, Venezuela. 1987: " Cubo Meneven", Edificio Corpoven, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. 1988: "Ovoide Polar", Fundación Polar, Caracas, Venezuela. "Cubo Provincial", Banco Provincial, Caracas, Venezuela. " Mur Polychrome", CFDT, Paris, France. " Ecriture", CFDT, Paris, France. " Large Sphere of Seoul", Olympic Park, Seoul, South Korea (made for Olympiade of Arts during Olympic Games in Seoul, 1988). "Media esfera roja", Seguros La Seguridad, Caracas, Venezuela. "Cubo virtual", Torre Banco Provincial, Caracas, Venezuela. 1992: "'Media esfera azul y Verde", Seville, Spain (made for Universal Exhibition in Seville, 1992). 1993: "Dos cubos virtuales", Darier Hentsch & Cie., Geneva, Switzerland. 1993-94: "Cubo de Francia", Ambassade de France, Caracas, Venezuela. 1995: "Welcoming Flag", Dowa Fire & Marine Insurance Company Phoenix Tower, Osaka, Japan. 1989-1995: " Volume virtual Air France", Air France Head Office, Roissy, France. 1997: Integration of four artworks, Hall, KPMG, La Défense (Paris), France. "Cube noir Penetrable", Fondazione Il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri, Seggiano (Grosseto), Italy. "Sphère bleue", Samsung Plaza, Gare de Suhyun (Megaport of Bundang), South Korea. " Penetrable of Tongyoung", Tongyoung Nammang Open Air Sculpture Park, Korea (1997). " Virtual Ellipsoids", Dresdner Bank Head Office, Berlin, Germany. "Esfera de Caracas", motorway Francisco Fajardo, Caracas, Venezuela. 1998-99: "La esfera de Margarita", Porlamar, Margarita Island, Venezuela. 2001: "' Large oval", new Chinese Petroleum Corporation Head Office, Taipei, Taiwan.

In 1973, the Jesús Soto Museum of Modern Art opened in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, with a collection of his work. Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva designed the building for the museum, and Italian op artist Getulio Alviani was called to run it. Something that is different about this gallery is that a large number of the exhibits are wired to the electricity supply so that they can move.