Optical Art 50 years later at David Richard
Santa Fe New Mexican
Pasatiempo, 02/27/2015
Michael Abatemarco


When the term Op Art — an abbreviation of “optical art” — first saw print in a 1964 Time magazine article about Julian Stanczak’s show Optical Paintings at New York’s Martha Jackson gallery, art historian and Museum of Modern Art curator William C. Seitz was already in the planning stages of the first comprehensive overview of the movement, The Responsive Eye, which opened at MOMA in 1965. Many of the artists involved, including Stanczak, shunned the term that came to describe artwork intended to produce an illusory effect. Op Art, though it often incorporated illusion, is based more on the phenomenon of perception. Some of its associated artists were part of collectives like the Anonima Group — founded in 1960 by Ed Mieczkowski, Frank Hewitt, and Ernst Benkert — but Op Art as a style wasn’t nestled in the hands of a few promoters, nor situated in a specific locale. You could point to New York City, or, in the case of Anonima, to Cleveland, to find artists working in the vein. Seitz’s exhibit was broad in scope, drawing on perceptual art from artists worldwide. He wasn’t looking for magicians who could fool the eye but wanted to present a selection of works born from specific artistic concerns, taught in American schools by European artists, that influenced a generation of artists. “A lot of people were working with perception but were not Op Art artists per se,” art historian Peter Frank told Pasatiempo. “They weren’t working with the rendition of illusion. They were working with the creation of perceptual challenges.” Frank co-curated Post-Op: ‘The Responsive Eye’ Fifty Years After with David Eichholz of David Richard Gallery. The exhibit is two-fold. It features works from the 1960s by many of the same artists included in the original Responsive Eye — Richard Anuszkiewicz, Karl Benjamin, Stanczak, and all three founders of Anonima — and a selection of contemporary pieces by these artists. Post-Op: ‘The Responsive Eye’ Fifty Years After is the first in a series of exhibits David Richard Gallery plans in 2015 in honor of the original show’s anniversary.

The gallery’s second exhibition in the series will focus on artists active at the time of The Responsive Eye, but who were not included in the show. The third exhibit features contemporary works that build on concerns similar to those of Op Art, and the fourth explores the influence of European and Latin American artists from the original exhibit. All four shows draw attention to historical contexts and critical approaches to Op Art. “They emphasize artists who effected the phenomenon of perceptual illusion graphically,” Frank said. “They were positing a general visual imagery to allude and trick as well as directly address the eye.”

Op Art came into its own in the early ’60s. “The phenomenon mainstreamed very quickly, which is not surprising, given the fact that MOMA had given its approval,” Frank said. Seitz’s exhibit featured work from about 100 artists and more than a dozen nations. “It elevated the interest, particularly in New York.” None of these artists thought of themselves as Op Art artists. One thing they share is a disregard for the primacy of composition. Composition gives way to almost a minimalized structure that allows color interaction and line to predominate. They were involved more in production than in reception. They were concerned ideologically and intellectually with issues of perception.” Op Art is often characterized as having reductive geometric forms and hard edges, and as being linear and abstract. The impression of optical illusion, when present in a work, is created by juxtapositions of color, line, and form. Artists drew on scientific research about how the human eye perceives objects. The people working with these compositional elements were trained as Color Field and hard-edge painters, many of them taught by European modernists who emigrated to the United States, including Josef Albers, a Bauhaus professor who taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. “It’s a movement with its roots entirely in Europe,” Frank said. “There were other Bauhaus professors who moved here: Walter Gropius was at Harvard, [László] Moholy-Nagy was in Chicago. The Color Field and hard-edge people emerge parallel as you get into the more generalized Op Art activity. The Op Art people like Anuszkiewicz and Stanczak are more or less influenced by Albers, who is coming right out of the Bauhaus.” The Responsive Eye also included work by Hannes Beckmann, a contemporary of Albers who came to the U.S. after incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp, and taught color and design at New York’s Cooper Union.

Oli Sihvonen, who was active in Taos, was also a student of Albers. His early work 3 on Green, featured in the David Richard show, is a rectangular composition of three colored circles with a space that suggests a missing fourth. It deals with the contrast of positive and negative space and, subtly, with illusion. The background of the piece is a green field; if the color of the one missing circle matches that field, then it really isn’t missing at all — it is merely blended in. The human eye seeks to impose an order on such paintings, filling in any missing components. Benjamin, Thomas Downing, and Alexander Liberman — also included in the exhibit — like Sihvonen, dealt with basic geometric shapes and negative space. They created paintings that challenged the viewers’ perceptions with visual uncertainty. Anuszkiewicz’s Crossroad Red works similarly. The enameled steel sculpture is a precise configuration of lines that have the appearance of three dimensions, although the sculpture itself is flat. The design is an intersection of two linear planes forming an X that is not completely rendered. Lines are missing, but enough visual information is presented for the viewer to fill in the rest of the composition, which the eye does automatically.

In Op Art, colors could produce a kinetic visual effect or illusion simply by the way in which an artist placed two or more colors in proximity. The same can be done by overlapping geometric forms or varying line thicknesses, as Benkert did with his Untitled work on paper from 1967. Color was not necessarily of immediate concern. Many of the Op Art artists worked in black and white, as Benkert did. Or, like Stanczak does now, they moved back and forth between black and white and color. Stanczak’s Trespass in the Dark (2010) comprises a series of tight parallel lines that bend to create the appearance of ridges or folds in the picture plane. “He’s one of the minority of Op Art artists who is as interested in what you don’t see as what you do see,” Frank said. Stanczak’s older piece Translucent Orange has a similar three-dimensional effect but is done using overlapping colors arranged in a grid. On the other hand, Mieczkowski’s Adele, from 1963, seems to rely on both line and color for its effects. The eye navigates the composition as if it were terrain, roving over peaks and valleys created by overlapping planes and spheres. The illusion is one where order seems to vanish, then reappear from out of the abstraction. “It’s nonobjective,” Frank said. “It’s pure form, but it’s illusory.”

Associated Artist

• Richard Anuszkiewicz
• Karl Benjamin
• Ernst Benkert
• Francis Celentano
• Thomas Downing
• Lorser Feitelson
• John Goodyear
• Francis Hewitt
• Leroy Lamis
• Mon Levinson
• Alexander Liberman
• Ed Mieczkowski
• Oli Sihvonen
• Julian Stanczak
• Peter Anthony Stroud

Associated Exhibitions

• Post-Op: 'The Responsive Eye' Fifty Years After Curated by David Eichholtz and Peter Frank
  February 24, 2015 - April 11, 2015
  MORE INFO
• Gallery talk: Saturday, February 28, 2:00 - 3:00 PM with Peter Frank, David Eichholtz, and artist Tom Martinelli
  February 28, 2015 - February 28, 2015
  MORE INFO

Associated News

• May 23, 2020
  Richard Anuszkiewicz (1930–2020)


• August 5, 2019
  ‘Optical Art’ to be shown at Fort Wayne Museum of Art
  Wane.com
  August 5, 2019
  Dirk Rowley
  


• April 8, 2019
  JULIAN STANCZAK
  The Lobby Gallery, 499 Park Avenue, New York
  On view through September 2019
  Reception: Tuesday, April 9, 5-7 pm
  
  


• March 26, 2019
  Rhythm, Rhythm, Everywhere
  Toledo City Paper, 03/26/2019
  Thena Cocoves
  
  


• July 28, 2018
  Unique art 'treasure hunt' spans dozens of Ohio venues
  The Blade, 07/28/2018
  Roberta Gedert
  
  


• July 12, 2018
  Cleveland Hopes to Become the Next Venice
  The Wall Street Journal, 07/12/2018
  Kelly Crow
  
  


• February 17, 2018
  Julian Stanczak
  Visual Art Source, 02/17/2018
  Amanda Malloy
  
  


• February 9, 2018
  Julian Stanczak at David Richard Gallery
  Santa Fe New Mexican
  Pasatiempo, 02/09/2018
  Michael Abatemarco
  
  


• February 8, 2018
  Love is in the Art
  Santa Fe Arts Journal, 02/08/2018
  Emily Van Cleve
  
  


• January 31, 2018
  Press Release - Julian Stanczak "Dynamic Fields"


• January 26, 2018
  Oli Sihvonen, Kinetic Energy
  Wall Street International Magazine, 01/26/2018
  
  


• January 17, 2018
  Press Release - Oli Sihvonen "Kinetic Energy"


• July 22, 2017
  FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art


• April 19, 2017
  Julian Stanczak’s Contribution to Cincinnati Art
  City Beat, 04/19/2017
  Steven Rosen
  
  


• April 11, 2017
  Julian Stanczak, Abstract Painter, Dies at 88
  New York Times, 04/11/2017
  Roberta Smith
  
  


• March 31, 2017
  Julian Stanczak on the Power of Red
  ArtInfo, 03/31/2017
  
  


• March 28, 2017
  Op Art Loses One of Its Leading Figures With Death of Julian Stanczak
  ArtNet News, 03/29/2017
  Perwana Nazif
  
  


• March 28, 2017
  Julian Stanczak, Central Figure of Op Art Movement, Dies at 88
  ArtNet News, 03/28/2017
  Alex Greenberger
  
  


• March 28, 2017
  Julian Stanczak (1928–2017)
  Artforum, 03/28/2017
  
  


• March 27, 2017
  Julian Stanczak, globally renowned Op artist based in Cleveland, has died at age 88
  Cleveland.com, 03/25/2017
  Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer
  
  


• December 16, 2015
  Julian Stanczak Op Art paintings smash local price ceiling and rocket nationally
  Cleveland.com, 12/16/2015
  Steven Litt
  
  


• February 25, 2015
  Op Art pioneer Richard Anuszkiewicz’s dancing colors are like Red Bull for your retinas
  Orlando Weekly, 02/25/2015
  Richard Reep
  
  


• January 29, 2015
  Color Color' evokes harmony between two disparate mediums
  The New Record, 01/29/2015
  Christina Drobney
  
  


• December 15, 2014
  'Color Color' at the Cincinnati Art Museum showcases digital prints and poetry
  ArtDaily.org, 12/15/2014
  
  


• March 19, 2014
  Oli Sihvonen: In Motion
  Art Ltd, March/April 2014
  Matthew Irwin
  
  


• March 3, 2014
  Press Release - Julian Stanczak "Lineal Pathways"


• March 1, 2014
  Oli Sihvonen
  David Richard Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
  Visual Art Source, 03/01/2014
  Iris McLister
  
  


• February 23, 2014
  1969 Cleveland Arts Prize for Visual Arts
  


• January 31, 2014
  Capturing chance and time


• January 30, 2014
  Rhythmic and optical paintings by Oli Sihvonen from 1988 to 1991 presented at David Richard Gallery
  


• January 10, 2014
  Press Release - Oli Sihvonen "In Motion"


• November 15, 2013
  Richard Anuszkiewicz featrured in the exhibition "Optic Nerve" at the Tacoma Art Museum.


• April 30, 2013
  JULIAN STANCZAK
  COLOR WONDER
  Cleveland Magazine, May 2013
  
  


• April 13, 2013
  Press Release - RICHARD ANUSZKIEWICZ Variations: Evolution of The Artist's Media 1986 - 2012


• April 8, 2013
  AKRON ART MUSEUM
  Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Julian Stanczak
  Apr 13, 2013 - Nov 3, 2013
  


• October 16, 2012
  THE MARKET'S HOTTEST ARTISTS
  Bloomberg.com, 10/16/2012
  Ben Steverman
  
  


• May 1, 2012
  An Interview with Artist Julian Stanczak
  GeoForm, May 2012
  Julie Karabenick
  
  


• May 1, 2012
  An Interview with Artist Julian Stanczak
  GeoForm, May 2012
  Julie Karabenick
  
  


• December 13, 2011
  JULIAN STANCZAK: GREAT COLORIST OF THE 20TH CENTURY
  Cleveland Institute of Art, 12/13/2011
  
  


• November 6, 2011
  Cleveland Institute of Art touts its own history in shows on Robert Mangold, Julian Stanczak and Ed Mieczkowski
  Cleveland.com, 11/06/2011
  Steven Litt
  
  


• September 21, 2011
  CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART OPTICAL ART EXHIBIT A TEST FOR THE EYES
  WEWS, 09/21/2011
  
  


• August 23, 2011
  Press Release - Julian Stanczak "Tactile See Through"


• November 1, 2010
  The New Criterion review of "Julian Stanczak: Color - Grid"
  Gallery Chronicle, November 2010
  James Panero
  
  


• February 27, 2015
  Optical Art 50 years later at David Richard
  Santa Fe New Mexican
  Pasatiempo, 02/27/2015
  Michael Abatemarco
  
  


• February 24, 2015
  Persistence of Vision
  Art & Antiques, March 2015