
FRANCISCO SOBRINO (1932-2014, Spain-France)
“…using geometrical forms enabled me to understand what I was doing, it helped me to tell things in a clear language. I wanted to create a kind of alphabet of elementary and impersonal forms, with which I could build sentences. I still have the same desire: to be clear.”
Born to a working class family in Guadalajara, Spain, Francisco Sobrino began his studies of painting and sculpture at the School of Arts and Crafts in Madrid, between 1946 and 1948. He moved to Argentina in 1949, and studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires from 1950 to 1957. During this period, he met many of the artists and writers involved with the Arte Concreto-Invención group, and he began working in geometric abstraction. At the Escuela de Bellas Artes, he also met Hugo Demarco, Julio Le Parc, and Horacio Garcia Rossi. In 1959, Sobrino moved to Paris with Le Parc, where they co-founded the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV). In 1960, Sobrino began making reliefs and then three-dimensional constructions from transparent, tinted acrylic plastic. These works were the first of his explorations of juxtaposition and superimposition between the viewer and the work of art. In 1965, his work was included in The Responsive Eye exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
In their 1966 manifesto, GRAV’s members write, “We are particularly interested in the proliferation of works which permit a variety of situations, whether they engender a strong visual excitement, or demand a move on the part of the spectator, or contain in themselves a principle of transformation, or whether they call for active participation from the spectator.” Light and movement were of special interest to the artists of GRAV, but they were careful to avoid using these as ends in themselves. Instead, light and movement were ways of modifying a particular environment and creating an unexpected situation, to which audience members could respond. The group hoped that such interactive works might lead to a social movement, based around collective experience and viewer participation. After numerous group exhibitions throughout Europe, GRAV separated in 1968.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Sobrino continued his research into light, using solar energy with the help of solar panels. He also developed his work with modular units, which allow the viewer to change the sculpture’s form. He continued using Plexiglas, noting, “The use of Plexiglas gives birth to manifold plays of light having to do with transparency and reflects like polished steel, which is an excellent mirror, a kind of very interesting virtual reality.” In 1971, he worked on sets and costumes for the ballet Requiem, by Ligeti, performed at the Theatre contemporain de Grenoble. In 1979, he completed his architectural designs for a bank in Guadalajara, Spain. “The first kinetic architecture in the world,” the bank was designed in black and white, with projections on the floors, staircases, and walls; it was later destroyed.
Sobrino continued his consistent creative exploration of the relationships between science and art, through kinetic, optical, and geometric projects throughout his career. In 2008, work on the Francisco Sobrino Museum was begun in Guadalajara, Spain. Sobrino’s work has been shown extensively in international museums and collections, and he completed several important architectural commissions in Europe and in Latin America.
2019
| Luz y movimiento. La vanguardia cinética en París 1950-1975 - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Alicante (MACA), Alicante, Spain |
2017 | Francisco Sobrino - Modus Operandi - Galerie Mitterrand, Paris, France |
| Que de la sculpture - Galerie Denise René - Espace Marais, Paris, France |
| 40th anniversary. Twentieth Century Art Collection. 1977-2017 - Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Alicante (MACA), Alicante, Spain |
2016
| Heterotopias - Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Alicante (MACA), Alicante, Spain |
2015 | Francisco Sobrino - Museo Francisco Sobrino, Guadalajara, Mexico |
2014
| Francisco Sobrino - Structure & Transformation - Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA |
| Francisco Sobrino - Galerìa Guillermo de Osma, Madrid, Spain |
| Abstraction/figuration - oeuvres du Centre national des arts plastqiues - Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Rennes, France |
2013 | Francisco Sobrino – Jousse Entreprise, Paris, France |
| Dynamo Un Siecle De Lumiere Et De Mouvement Dans L’art 1913-2013 - Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, France |
2012
| Intercambio global. Abstracción geométrica desde 1950 - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| European Art: 1949-1979 - Marion R. Taylor: Paintings, 1966–2001 - Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy |
2011
| North Looks South: Building the Latin American Art Collection - Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA |
2007
| Les œuvres parlent d’elles-mêmes… - Galerie Lélia Mordoch, Paris, France |
| Lo[s] Cinético[s] - Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain |
2003 | Sobrino - Noir Et Blanc - Galerie Lélia Mordoch, Paris, France |
2000 | Francisco Sobrino - Noir & Blanc - Galerie Lélia Mordoch, Paris, France |
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, NY, USA
Beacon Collection, Boston, MA, USA
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Centre National d’Art Plastique, Paris, France
Colección del Parlamento Provincial, Guadalajara, Spain
Fondazione Peggy Guggenheim, Venice, Italy
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., USA
Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Cholet, France
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Bilbao, Spain
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, Spain
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Villafanes, Spain
Museo de Arte Moderno, Alicante, Spain
Museo de Arte Moderno - Fundación Jesús Soto, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela
Museo de la Escultura Monumental al Aire Libre, Madrid, Spain
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA
Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tate Gallery, London, Great Britain
Tel Aviv Museum, Israel