Mastery of the Line

Abraham Palatnik is a Brasilian artist that I just discovered today at the CCBB. Born in 1928, he lived a portion of his life in Tel Aviv before returning in Brazil to become an artist. He contributed to the development of kinetic art, or a type of art that moves and transform itself mechanically. He experimented with various ideas, creating little machines with springs and pendulums, mechanical boxes moving shadows and lights, all very different from one another. The portion of his work that I found really mesmerizing had less to do with mechanics and movements, but more with movements created by the shifting and juxtaposition of textures. Very narrow bands of textures, all stemmed from the same board, and therefore having initially very little variations one from another, are laid side by side. Their positions are shifted a few millimeters, creating the impression of movement in the newly created texture. The craftsmanship of the work is extremely accurate, precise, leaving an impression of perfection. Very architectural too. Really inspiring.