Antonio Asis

Born in Argentina in 1932^[1], Asis made Paris his permanent home and spent the following decades systematically investigating what happens when the eye meets patterns calibrated to produce the sensation of movement in static objects. His signature works, the Interférences concentriques series, built fields of concentric geometric forms that appeared to pulse and vibrate as the viewer moved in relation to them. A parallel line of sculptures, the Vibrations pieces, used layered metal grilles to create moiré interference patterns in three dimensions.

These were not purely decorative experiments. The Op Art and kinetic movements of the 1960s carried a particular conviction: that art could engage the nervous system directly, bypassing cultural literacy and reaching any viewer regardless of education or background. For a generation of Latin American artists in Paris, this democratic aspiration had additional weight, coming as it did from outside the European tradition they were simultaneously absorbing.

Asis exhibited at the Paris Biennale in 1967^[1] and at the Casa de Cultura in Grenoble in 1968, during Op Art's peak institutional moment. He continued working in Paris until his death in 2019^[1] at the age of 87.