Each week we pay homage to a select "Original Creator"—an iconic artist from days gone by whose work influences and informs today's creators. These are artists who were innovative and revolutionary in their fields. Bold visionaries and radicals, groundbreaking frontiersmen and women who inspired and informed culture as we know it today. This week: Julio Le Parc..Even if you’ve never heard the name of Argentinian artist Julio Le Parc (1928) before, chances are you’ll still feel a certain familiarity when encountering his work. You may notice the influence of his geometric forms in the work of many artists who followed in his footsteps, such as our Creator U-ram Choe. The legacy established by Le Parc seems all the more timely today, when kinetic art is being newly explored and animated through technology and digital media.During the 60s, Le Parc was one of the founding members of Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel, GRAV (1960-68), a historical collective of optical-kinetic artists who advocated the idea of the public as co-author of creation. By this time, the artist had just arrived in Paris, where he produced the series Surface, inspired by the artistic effervescence of the streets found in the “city of lights” and the generation of artists preceding him that had established and sealed its reputation as a hub for progressive ideas and artistic greatness. The starting point was the consideration we have for the work of Vasarely (in black and white) and Mondrian, the analysis of certain works of Albers and, in general, constructivism and achievements that included the notion of movement, he explains on his website.In early 1960, he begins to develop the Mobile Series:Soon, Le Parc advanced his experiments with light and movement, creating large installations such as the one designed for the Paris Biennial in 1962 (below). With impalpable works, his proposal was to break from artistic paradigms and change the way we were conceiving and appreciating art. At the same time, he imprinted a sociopolitical critique in his work—it could not become a marketable product. He comments about these pieces: "In the traditional work of the artist, everything is fixed by a system of signs and concepts of which a foreknowledge is required for the enjoyment of such work. We think that this type of presentation was a way to break down the traditional notions of what art is, how to do it and how to enjoy it. "In his Contortions series, the Argentinian-born artist used motors to move plastic or metal sheets in successive curves, projecting shadows on a screen. In some cases, he used white plastic stripes to form circles on a black background, driven by two cranks turning at different speeds. This same principle was applied using strips of polished stainless steel, sometimes in a striped background, reflecting twisted rays with it's motion.The art of Le Parc remains fresh despite the many transformations, in both aesthetics and techniques, that took place in the years to follow. So it's no surprise that his son, Juan Le Parc, has translated his early geometric pieces, the series Surfaces and Relief, to the virtual space. You can see the result here. In addition, he created the [Museo Virtual de Julio Le Parc](http://www.julioleparc.org/museum/julio 20parc.zip% 20LE%) (download), with five environments representing three stages of Le Parc’s work.
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