Kinetic art

Kinetic art is art that incorporates real or apparent movement. The term has been used for motorized works, works moved or modified by natural forces such as wind or water, works altered through the intervention of the viewer, and static works whose appearance changes as the viewer moves around them. The term partly overlaps with op art, particularly in works based on optical effects. Early works incorporating actual movement include Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel (1913), Naum Gabo's motor-driven Kinetic Construction (1920), and László Moholy-Nagy's Light Prop for an Electric Stage, also known as the Light-Space Modulator (1930). Alexander Calder initially used motors to move some of his abstract sculptures before turning to air currents and other changes in the surrounding environment to produce less predictable movement. The 1955 exhibition Le Mouvement at the Galerie Denise René in Paris was a landmark in the development of kinetic art. It included works by Yaacov Agam, Pol Bury, Calder, Duchamp, Robert Jacobsen, Jesús Rafael Soto, Jean Tinguely and Victor Vasarely. Tinguely became particularly associated with motor-driven sculptural machines. During the 1960s, exhibitions devoted to kinetic art were organized across Europe and a number of artist groups formed around experiments with movement, optical effects and viewer participation.