Relieve luminoso móvil (Mobile Luminous Relief)

Eusebio Sempere

Onil, Alicante, Spain, 1923 - 1985
  • Date: 
    1959
  • Material: 
    Painted wood, plastic, Light bulbs and electric motor
  • Technique: 
    Assemblage
  • Descriptive technique: 
    Work consisting of a wooden structure painted with a plastic sheet, incandescent lamps, a clockwork and an electric motor
  • Dimensions: 
    59,5 x 60 x 14 cm
  • Category: 
    Sculpture
  • Entry date: 
    2001
  • Register number: 
    AD02335

Eusebio Sempere moved to Paris in 1949, where he experienced first-hand the evolution of Neo-Concrete and Optical art practised by artists including Jesús Soto, Victor Vasarely, Jean Tinguely and Yaacov Agam, which mainly revolved around the Denise René Gallery and exhibitions such as those at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. When he returned to Spain, Sempere made a pioneering contribution to what was labelled Normativism, a movement based on speculative and programmatic geometry. His main contributions were a group of gouaches, which he worked on until 1960 when he was already part of the Grupo Parpalló, and the luminous reliefs, which had already been shown at the Salón des Réalités Nouvelles in 1955. His thoughts on light are contained in the text “Manifiesto sobre la luz” (Manifesto on Light). The luminous reliefs, like the one discussed here, unite the concepts of light and time. With these works, Sempere was engaging in a kind of non two-dimensional production, where the most important things were the lighting effects at intervals and in movement; work that was definitively neither painting nor sculpture. His output should therefore be assessed in relation to other kinds of three-dimensional investigations, such as Tinguely’s mechanical investigations or Soto’s optical investigations.

Carmen Fernández Aparicio

Cargando...