A Planetary Folklore against Contamination: Victor Vasarely in Cleveland

A budapesti Labor gyógyszerészeti vállalat alkalmazásában álló Victor Vasarely (Vásárhelyi Győző) azt követően, hogy 1930-ban Párizsba költözött, különböző mediciánák és szérumok hirdetéséhez készített grafikai terveket. Amikor az 1960-as években megalkotta saját absztrakt-geometrikus művészetére támaszkodó és azt egy urbanisztikai programmá tágító "Plasti-Cité" koncepcióját, a városok megszépítésével kapcsolatos elképzelésében felhasználta azokat a korábbi ötleteit, amelyek a higiéniát, az orvoslást és a terepeutikus gondolkodást feldolgozó témák ábrázolásában hasznosultak.

https://caa.confex.com/caa/2021/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/10611

In the early 1930s, the yet-to-become father of Op Art, Victor Vasarely, came up with an unusual set of drawings focusing on various types of diseases. His meticulously detailed sketches were referring to imaginary medical products, however they were not commissioned by any pharmaceutical companies. He first showed them to the public some 40 years later, in 1976, at his own Foundation in Aix-en-Provence, which was modeled after a laboratory. In the same year, he asserted that a contemporary painter must “turn the urban landscape into a place of aesthetic beauty that would be as indispensable to man’s health as oxygen, vitamins and love.” In fact, Vasarely’s concept, titled “Plasti-Cité,” was based on the idea that art is a type of vitamin that we need to digest in order to protect our immune system. Enlarging the scope of this idea from the individual to the civic he was seeking to express his obligation in the revitalization of ailing urban communities through artistic medi(c)ation, which he believed helps prevent the contamination of the cityscape. My presentation will focus on the artist’s forgotten urban vision in Cleveland, “the most polluted city of the United States” where Vasarely aimed to translate the concept of the polychrome city into reality. This utopist project was never realized, however some of its aspects are still overdue today. Most importantly it raised the question of art as a universal language that can be taught, enjoyed, algorithmically programmed, and biologically coded as an antidote against the odds.