This short newspaper article contains three basic facts. First, that Carlos Cruz-Diez will have his first solo show in New York and in the American Union, opening on November 17, 1971. Second, that the exhibition will be held at the recently opened New York premises of the Denise René Gallery, where thirty-six pieces from three series—Cromointerferencias, Colores aditivos, and Inducciones cromáticas—will be presented. And, finally, that the exhibition was generating a great deal of interest (presumably among Venezuelans) in North America because the local art media were well informed concerning avant-garde ideas in general and the artist’s theories in particular.
In addition to these facts (concerning the exhibition of works by Cruz-Diez at the New York Denise René Gallery), the writer of the article includes other information based on assumptions: that the artist presented an extensive and excellent selection of his work (something that could not be known in Caracas). And that the New York art media must know something about the Venezuelan artist’s work since the United States was unfamiliar with the kind of work that preceded (by a decade) Op art and was based on various phenomena other than a simple “retinality.”
Along with this newspaper article, readers should remember the negative reception that greeted The Responsive Eye, the exhibition organized six years earlier by Williams C. Seitz at the Museum of Modern Art, which prompted the New York art media to reject all types of works based on optical effects and illusions. That is, the kind of works being created by Kinetic artists. In fact, Denise René was forced to close her North American gallery just ten years after it opened due to the public’s lukewarm response to the sort of art she championed.
