(born in Trieste in 1940)
Dinamica circolare 6 B, titled, signed and dated m. apollonio 1967 twice on the reverse, enamel on board, rotating mechanism, diameter 100 cm

Watch video

Provenance:
The artist
Galleria 10 A.M. Art, Milan
acquired from the above by the present owner –
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Milan, Le Nuove Tendenze. Rivelazioni di un’arte percettiva e sensoriale, costruttiva e interattiva, Galleria 10 A.M. Art, 18 January - 15 March 2014, exh.-cat. page 25 ill., Edizione 10 A.M. Art, Milan (texts: Giovanni Anceschi).

Published in:
Marina Apollonio. Retrospective Exhibition, Galleria 10 A.M. Art, Milan, 10 January - 11 April 2015, exh. cat. page 136, ill., Edizione 10 A.M. Art, Milan, (texts: Joe Houston, Ugo Savardi and Bianca Maria Menichini)

Marina Apollonio’s rotating circular disc Dinamica circolare 6 B is an optical experience that explores and makes tangible the boundaries of our perception. The moving picture causes an amplified pulsation in the eye, rapidly increasing to a hypnotic effect. Even when the disc is not moving, the pattern of black and white, decentralised circles still portends a challenge for the sensory assumptions of the viewer.

Created during the height of Op Art, the work embodies the central ideas of this internationally important artistic movement of the 1960s. Beginning with investigations into optical phenomena and principles of perception, such as contrasting effects, overexposure, afterimages, the sense of spatial movement and simultaneous colour effects, artists were interested in achieving a deliberate visual irritation. The strategies of Op Art impede an adaptation of the eye, and alternate between seeing and understanding.

In 2007, in the course of the ongoing rediscovery and new evaluation of Op Art, in the major survey exhibition of the Frankfurt Schirn Kunsthalle, Marina Apollonio presented her work Spazio ad attivazione cinetica 1967-1971/2007, a rotating disc that can be walked on, with a diameter of 10 metres. Her thoughts on the aforementioned work are also completely valid with regard to the present one:

“The circular unit attains an inner activation through white and black patterns: curvilinear and trans-axial structures, concentric and eccentric circles, circular arcs and their transformation; proportional and gradually reciprocal. The graphic texture provides the foundation for the creation of an “attractive-expansive” and “flowing-elastic” perception of space. (...) The circular movement expands the obvious aspects and, depending on the tempo, results in an impression of distance and approximation, virtual concavity and convexity as well as pulsating flowing movement of the linear masses.”
Marina Apollonio, in: Op Art, exh.cat. Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Cologne, König, 2007, page 99