Julio (JLP): Optimism forever!
Yamil (YLP): OK, Dad, here are the glasses with their new box.
JLP: These transform the viewer's vision. With these you see in reverse.
YLP: For my father, creation begins the moment the viewer puts on the glasses as the sole purpose is the interaction with the individual. He's proposing a different vision of an art which is accessible to everyone and more playful.
JLP: My effort was always directed in that sense to try to create things as simple as possible so that they, in turn, could create a direct relationship with the viewer.
I was born in Mendoza in 1928. My father was a railway worker, my mother was a seamstress, a simple family. It makes you feel in solidarity with that world with those people and indirectly experience social differences.
YLP: My father's story is full of glamour and beautiful cinematic images. My father always talks about how when he first arrived in Paris he found the museums dull and very conventional there was a real sense of coldness and distance from the public and very few people visited the museums. So he decided to set up the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV) a sort of laboratory dedicated to research.
Here’s Julio Le Parc, Yvaral, Sobrino, François Morellet, García Rossi and Joël Stein.
To me, they were like The Beatles they had that same spirit of freedom, that's what they were aiming for, the socialist idea of breaking down barriers between the cultural establishment and the public. So that art takes to the streets, so that art is for everyone. So they were very quickly regarded as eccentric
Gabriel (GLP): So what have you found?
YLP: There are so many things, this is great.
GLP: They’re beautiful here
YLP: A lovely photograph, they had only just arrived in Paris.
GLP: Martha was an artist herself
YLP: But also an artist’s wife who devoted her life to my father and his children. They got married from a distance, by proxy. As my mother used to say she married with a photograph. Here’s Martha on her wedding day without her husband, who is in the photo.
GLP: It was more by watching them that we received advice from them. So we learnt a great deal by example a political awareness, a work ethic an independent spirit too and a certain freedom of thought.
He was also known for his political activism he was blocking exhibitions, he protested against state cultural policies. He was very influenced by political events in Argentina, coup d’état, military dictatorships, repression and poverty. Julio himself comes from that world, from that milieu. He knew well that he couldn’t, on the one hand have opinions against the art world and, on the other, exhibit whenever he was asked to and play the compliant artist.
JLP: I believe in a different and better society
YLP: Above all, my father is someone who seeks to have fun in his work.
When I was eight Jacques Lassalle offered him his first retrospective in Paris, but he felt a bit awkward about accepting such recognition given that it was the French National Museum.
So he decided to flip a coin to decide. He asked for an innocent child with no vested interest, to toss the coin. So I did as I was asked but the coin landed on the wrong side and he refused the exhibition.
GLP: He decided to leave it to fate, to chance but they saw him as arrogant, pretentious or at the very least someone who wouldn’t bow to pressure and so he was ostracised. Many doors were closed to him. He went down in history for a refusal rather than an acceptance which is strongly representative of his personality.
YLP: Hello
Julio Le Parc is a far more versatile artist than one might imagine. Over the past fifteen years he has created a vast body of work. And his art involves taking risks as, throughout different periods, he has always sought to change the style and the medium he uses. His life has been dedicated to exploration.
What stands out in his works is movement and light. His work becomes kinetic through movement only when the viewers themselves start moving it is dependent on movement. That is a tremendous gift to incorporate our bodies into the work so that the work can exist. It makes us feel that we are all part of this world.
JLP: You must touch the artwork.
These works of light and movement incite a will for change, for transformation.
Without you my art doesn’t exist.
Le Parc is best known for his pioneering kinetic sculptures, which often rely on the viewer to bring them to life.
In this short film, Le Parc and his sons introduce us to some of his most surprising and playful works. They propose a different, more democratic vision of art, accessible to everyone.
Born in Argentina in 1928, Le Parc moved to France in 1958, where he settled. He was part of the vibrant artistic scene of 1960s Paris, a time of radical innovation and boundless creativity, but always maintained strong connections to Latin America. His story offers a fascinating insight into the evolving practice of an artist who, like his work, keeps surprising us and never stands still.
Julio Le Parc at Tate Modern
Discover seven decades of work by Julio Le Parc in Tate Modern's new exhibition (11 June 2026 – 3 May 2027).
