Fisicromía 2250 1989

Carlos Cruz-Diez made this hundred-by-hundred-centimeter chromatic invention, Fisicromía 2250, in no particular year, just investigating colour, and the way colour shifts. I like to imagine how the colour might appear different in different light. What would it look like in a dark room? What if the sun shone on it? I like to think about how artists sometimes try to trick the eye, to investigate perception, and create new worlds. This is what Carlos Cruz-Diez does by placing strips of colour close together, setting up these fine modulations. Maybe he was thinking about Agnes Martin. It seems like he’s trying to make the painting into a world you could enter, a chromatic invention, rather than a picture of something. He asks the viewer to actively engage with how colour is perceived. All of these things, these questions about what painting can do, are part of a big conversation that artists have been having for centuries, and that we are all a part of.