Grille c. 1952

Curator: What first strikes you about Victor Vasarely’s ‘Grille,’ a drawing from around 1952? It's such a precise and seemingly simple work of Op Art. Editor: Well, immediately the grid overlaying this organic shape, makes it quite dynamic, though executed using very rigid lines. It almost feels like something organic is trying to break free from a system. What is your interpretation of this work? Curator: My eye goes to the way Vasarely co-opts industrial methods. Look at how the grid, usually a system of organization and control in industrial design, becomes a means of distorting perception. Think about the materials available and their impact on this work. Was the intent about making art accessible via new techniques or more mass-produced methods? What was the artist able to express using the available materials? Editor: I never considered it that way. I guess the process of creation really informed how we receive the artwork. And the materials… I assume they would affect its status as ‘art’. Is the piece made with expensive materials, or those that anyone might easily access? Curator: Exactly! It is drawing that uses ink, it would've been considered less "art" and more like mass culture during its historical moment. And those industrial or mass-producible roots were radical! He takes tools from the world of labor, tools anyone could use, to make us question what art is. What assumptions is the artist challenging? Editor: The social impact of such creation method, challenging the boundary between ‘art’ and more mundane ways of making things. The meaning really shifts once you start to examine the materials used and processes of making… Fascinating! Curator: Precisely! By exploring the materials, tools and the means of production, we can start to break down old notions.