Vasarely stated in 1955 in his famous Yellow Manifesto: "the art of tomorrow will be a collective treasure or it will not be art at all". Perhaps, at that time, the artists attached to the Op Art and Kinetic Art movements were not aware of the impact their works would have on the future of later art, but today there is no doubt that the concern and research surrounding the movement have left their mark.

Karl Gerstner

Op Art was officially inaugurated with the exhibition "The responsive eye" that MoMA organised in 1965. In fact, it was about labelling an artistic trend that had sprung up a few years ago and one of which main milestones was the collective exhibition organised by the gallery Denise René under the title "Le mouvement". At that time, the works of Duchamp, Calder, Vasarely, Jesús Rafael Soto, Robert Jacobsen... lived together in an enriching dialogue that gave birth to a new style defined within geometric abstraction: the Kinetic Art.

Carlos Cruz-Diez

Halfway between research and artistic production, the obsession of many of these creators was focused on, not capturing the movement, but incorporating it into their pieces, in a literal and physical way. From Calder's famous mobile-sculptures to multi-perspective works that force visitors to move around to find the exact point of view. Whether incorporated or projected, movement was the essence of this trend of art, where we cannot forget that the line of creative development was strongly linked to the recent sociological and psychological theories about the changing context of the 20th century and that it has its own background in the art world such as Futurism or Suprematism.

Francisco Sobrino. Sin título, 1989

Op Art delves into another kind of movement, the one generated by the viewer's own perception through a game of optics or repetition patterns. Geometry and colour are fundamental in these works, where a simple contrast effect can produce a sense of depth or superposition of planes with a volume. Symmetries, asymmetries, minimalism, pure forms ... ingredients of a composition designed to deceive and confuse the senses of the observer.

Yaacov Agam

The Würth Museum collects a total of 76 works (31 from its own collection) of the leading authors of these trends with pieces from 1921 to 2013. The colour, shape, light and perspective join around a paradigmatic collection of changes that the 20th century introduced in the art world. This exhibition opens the calendar of activities scheduled to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Würth museum.

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.