By Kelsey Sanchez.
“Chroma” is a cross-platform, indoor-outdoor show from the SCAD Museum of Art, created by Carlos Cruz-Diez as part of deFINE ART 2017. The installation is the 2017 Best of Year Winner for Exhibition in Interior Design’s twelfth annual awards ceremony.
Storm Janse Van-Rensburg, SCAD’s head curator of exhibitions, partnered with alumna Raquel Serebrenik Sultan, who is now an independent curator, to organize the exhibit. For Jance van Rensburg, the purpose behind Chroma was for undergraduates to experience art, architecture and design in “a concise and distilled form.”
The show is entirely created by and focused on color theorist, Carlos Cruz-Diez. The 94 year old Venezuelan artist has been celebrated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as a pioneer in research and experimentation with color theory.
One such experiment on display as part of “Chroma” is known as Chromosaturation. This portion of the show was a shipping container located by the museum building and divided into three chambers. Here, a visitor experiences chromosaturation by immersing themselves in the three different colors through light and presentation in colors that change from one space to the next. Even the outside of the shipping container is art—the colors gradually change as viewers walk by. Watch the time-lapse creation of “Chromosaturation” here.
The exhibit encourages visitor interaction with more than new pieces. Pieces are also accompanied by explanatory materials and biographical videos.
Imagined as a traveling exhibition, “Chroma” has also been on display at the art fair Untitled, Miami Beach. More stops are expected for the award-winning show. The exhibition was made possible by the joint effort of the Cruz-Diez Art Foundation and Articruz (Panama), in collaboration with SCAD.
Learn more about Carlos Cruz-Diez’s career in our interview.
Revisit “Chroma” and the rest of deFINE Art 2017 here.
