Color and Image I Tokyo, Japan

Research presentation: “Contemporary Art and the Unfoldings of Colour”, at the annual meeting of the Association Internacionale de la Couleur, in Tokyo, Japan (2015).

Abstract: Contemporary art legitimates colour by leading it away from the traditional techniques of painting, and it transgresses platforms by thinking about new modalities of image: it puts the spectator and the space as central elements of the chromatic experience.

Colour is the sensation given by the image – and the latter is no longer assimilated from traditional constituents (canvas, paint) – in installations and urban interventions. The passengers on streets and avenues are captured by the unexpected, and colour is inserted within the city’s landscape as a sensorial input to be perceived.

From the 60’s onwards, the role of colour on the realms of contemporary visuality has been deeply rethought by art. Carlos Cruz-Diez (Venezuela), Hélio Oiticica (Brazil) and Daniel Buren (France) are leaders of this conceptual turning point: they established new chromatic formulations for installations and urban interventions; they made colour a way of awaking within the spectator the everyday sensitivity and the attention to the landscape.