STRUCTURES AND MOUVEMENT, Galerie Denise René, Paris, 1966
Opening: February 8, 1966, 9 p.m.
Duration: February 8–March 1, 1966
Dimensions: 27.8 x 20.5 cm
Further Information: Denise René (1913–2012) opened her gallery in Paris at the end of the Second World War, in June 1945. With the aim of showing painters that had been forgotten or forbidden during the war years, she exhibited works by Max Ernst, Hans Arp, and Francis Picabia. Later she focused on geometric abstraction and kinetic art. Creating a dialogue between different generations of artists, together with Poltus Hulten, René organized the exhibition Le Mouvement in 1955 including works by Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, Victor Vasarely, Jean Tinguely, Jesús Rafael Soto, Pol Bury, and others. 11 years after her popular show Mouvement, which was one of the first exhibitions of kinetic art, was Structures and Mouvement, which again showed kinetic art and geometric abstraction. As a specialist in both of those movements, as well as op art, Denise René also had gallery spaces in Krefeld, New York, and in Düsseldorf, which she ran together with the German art dealer Hans Mayer from 1966.
Denise René was also one of the few figures who looked beyond Western Europe, exhibiting Eastern European artists such as Hungarian artist Lajos Kassak and Polish artist Henryk Stazewski, as well as artists from South America such as the Venezuelan Jésus Rafael Soto or the Argentinians Julio Le Parc and Hugo Rodolfo Demarco. René also organized traveling exhibitions in Montevideo, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Scandinavia, building a strong global network.
Only a few months after the Structures & Mouvement exhibition, Julio Le Parc won the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale, marking the broadening scale of international recognition of kinetic art.
ALW, HR
Images: Images of the invitation and all other archival documents shown on this page are part of the online collection of Archiv der Avantgarden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
