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.

ABIERTO INFINITO. LO QUE EL CUERPO RECUERDA. CICLO DE PERFORMANCE X ART MADRID'26

Art Madrid, committed to creating a discursive platform for artists working within the field of performance and action art, presents Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda, a proposal inspired by Erving Goffman’s ideas in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Amorrortu Editores, Buenos Aires, 1997).

The project unfolds within a theoretical framework that directly engages with these premises, conceiving social interaction as a stage of carefully modulated performances designed to influence others’ perceptions. Goffman argues that individuals deploy both verbal and involuntary expressions to guide the interpretation of their behavior, sustaining roles and façades that define the situation for those who observe.

The body — the first territory of all representation — precedes both word and learned gesture. Human experience, conscious and unconscious alike, is inscribed within it. Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda departs from this premise: representation inhabits existence itself, and life, understood as a succession of representations, transforms the body into a space of constant negotiation over who we are. In this passage, boundaries blur; the individual opens toward the collective, and the ephemeral acquires symbolic dimension. By inhabiting this interstice, performance simultaneously reveals the fragility of identity and the strength that emerges from encounter with others.

PERFORMANCE: OFF LINE. JIMENA TERCERO

March 7 | 7:00 p.m. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

OFF LINE is a performance piece that reflects on the fragility of the body in the digital age. Our relationship with the outside world is mediated by a screen, which distances us further and further from physical contact and interpersonal relationships. Focusing on creating a digital identity causes the body to distance itself from the physical world and lose its memory.

Hyperconnectivity and fragmented attention lead to a more passive physical existence, characterised by reduced spontaneous movement and less direct sensory interaction. This raises fundamental questions: how is the concept of presence redefined when our relationship with the world relies on technological mediation? What will the experience of the body be like in a future where virtuality predominates over the physical? There is a risk of progressive bodily passivity: bodies that remain still, whose activity is determined by devices and whose memory is stored digitally. The fragmentation of physical experience and the primacy of technological representation create a scenario in which, although the body is visible, it is displaced from its original function as an agent of perception and action.

This conceptual framework invites reflection on the impact of digitisation on corporeality, memory and social relationships, and on the vulnerability and inertia experienced by bodies in environments that are increasingly mediated by technology.

ABOUT JIMENA TERCERO

Jimena Tercero (Madrid, 1998) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the boundaries of the female body, identity, and the subconscious. She uses performance, video, and painting to address concepts such as memory, tangibility, and play. Tercero trained in painting with Lola Albín and in analog photography at Cambridge in 2014. She studied audiovisual direction from 2018 to 2020 with renowned figures such as Víctor Erice and the production company El Deseo. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Creative Direction at ELISAVA. She completed her performance training at La Juan Gallery. In 2011, she was part of the children's jury at the Isfahan Film Festival in Iran.

Her directed works include Private (2016) and Paranoid (2021), which were exhibited at the Aspa Contemporary Gallery. She has also worked on projects such as Yo, mi, me, conmigo (2023, Teatros del Canal), Inside Voices (2021, Conde Duque with Itziar Okariz), and La última regla (La Juan Gallery). She has directed fashion films for publishers and brands such as Puma, Dior, and Dockers. She has also provided art direction for artists such as Sen Senra and Jorge Drexler. Additionally, she directed the documentary Also Here for ArtforChange–La Caixa. She presented Out of View (Nebula Gallery), EDEN (White Lab Gallery), and Navel Bite (Sinespacio). She participates in residencies such as Medialab with Niño de Elche and Miguel Álvarez Fernández. In 2025, she will be part of the Special Jury of the Asian Film Fest in Barcelona and the International Cultural Museum of Assilah Art Residency in Morocco).