Julio Le Parc, Blue Sphere 2013. Tate. Lent by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of the Latin American Acquisitions Committee 2023. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2025. Photo © Museum of Art Pudong
Today, Tate Modern opens an exhibition dedicated to the visionary work of Julio Le Parc (1928-2026). Organised in close collaboration with the artist and his Atelier, the exhibition features over 60 works spanning Le Parc’s extraordinary 70-year career, including interactive installations, striking light sculptures, and geometric abstract paintings. Arranged in a winding, maze-like manner, the exhibition follows Le Parc’s career-long mission to activate the viewer, using optical effects, sensory experiences and physical interactions to make audiences aware of the role they can play in bringing art to life.
Born in Argentina, and studying at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Le Parc moved to France in 1958 and joined the vibrant Parisian creative scene of the 1960s. The exhibition opens with the artist’s Surfaces series, early black and white gouache studies and paintings, created after his move to Paris in the late 1950s. These modular paintings use repeated geometric shapes and mathematical principles to create optical illusions, with as the patterns appearing to shift, rotate or flicker before the viewers’ eyes, as in Instability 1959 and Progressive Sequences 1959. Le Parc also experimented with the retinal afterimage, where high-contrast motifs leave a negative impression on the retina for long enough to be visible against a blank background, prompting the viewer to ‘complete’ the artwork with their eye movements.
Visitors have the chance to engage with Le Parc’s well known innovative luminokinetic artworks. Initially emerging in 1959 as a series of Light Boxes - sculptures containing sheets of transparent acrylic plastic and light sources to create mesmerising sequences – these installations quickly evolved into Le Parc’s key body of work, the Continual Light Mobiles, debuted in 1960. Spotlights in combination with reflective or transparent moving elements create dynamic kaleidoscopic visuals which transform in front of the spectator. Continuous Light Mobile 1963 features suspended elements which move in response to the air flows generated by the viewers’ movements, further emphasising the importance of the audience in Le Parc’s practice. Light distortion effects are also explored in Unique Continual Light Cylinder 1962 as well as the room-sized installation Vibrating Light – Tulles 1968. This aspect of Le Parc’s oeuvre extends beyond the exhibition walls, with a new large-scale Continual Light Mobile 2026 installed in the entrance hall of Tate Modern’s Blavatnik Building for the duration of the show.
Other works invite deeper physical participation. 64 Reflective Blades 2017 encourages viewers to move between a painting and a screen with a row of reflective stainless-steel strips, fragmenting and distorting their reflection while making them part of the artwork itself. The exhibition also displays Le Parc’s Game Room installations such as Ensemble of Eleven Surprise Movements 1965, and Pattern to Manipulate 1967, which ask viewers to directly engage with artworks by pressing buttons, rotating elements and other acts of physical play.
The exhibition concludes with Le Parc’s continued explorations of colour, ranging from his most recent paintings to his earliest experiments. Much of Le Parc’s work utilised a signature palette of 14 hues, first developed in 1959 in works such as the Colour Project, a series of small gouaches in which Le Parc extrapolates every possible colour variation of his palette. Le Parc continued to experiment with colour as well as black-and-white patterns throughout his career, notably in his iconic wave motif paintings such as Waves 176 2024, and his later Modulations and Alchemies series. The striking Blue Sphere 2001-22, acquired by Tate in 2024, demonstrates how Le Parc's recent sculptural work revisited and expanded his earlier mobiles and kaleidoscopic light installations.
Julio Le Parc: Light. Colour. Action. is presented in The George Economou Gallery. Supported by Anthropic with additional support from the Julio Le Parc Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate Members and Tate Americas Foundation. Curated by Val Ravaglia, Curator, Displays & International Art, and Francis Hardy, Assistant Curator, International Art.
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Listings information
Julio Le Parc: Light. Colour. Action.
11 June 2026 – 3 May 2027
Tate Modern, Bankside, SW1P 4RG
Open daily 10.00–18.00, and until 21:00 every Friday and Saturday.
Tickets available at tate.org.uk and +44(0)20 7887 8888
Free for Members. Join at tate.org.uk/members
Follow @Tate #JulioLeParc
Related Publications
Julio Le Parc
Published June 2026
Edited by Valentina Ravaglia
Paperback £20
Discover the joyful work of Argentinian-born Julio Le Parc, a leading figure in contemporary art, with this vibrant paperback exhibition book. Colourful and seductive, this exhibition celebrates the visionary work of Julio Le Parc. Best known for his pioneering kinetic sculptures, this immersive catalogue features his iconic interactive installations and large-scale paintings over an extraordinary seven-decade career.
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About Julio Le Parc
Julio Le Parc was born in Mendoza, Argentina in 1928, and lived and worked in Paris. He was a Co-Founder of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV). His work has been exhibited extensively including The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1965); The Howard Wise Gallery, New York (1966); Museo de Bellas Artes (1967); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1969), Kunsthalle Basel (1971); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013); Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro (2013); MALBA, Buenos Aires (2014); Serpentine Galleries, London (2014); Perez Art Museum, Miami (2016); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2018). The Metropolitan Museum of Art also acquired several of his works after the 2018 exhibition, and Buenos Aires’ MALBA recently acquired the largest collection of kinetic and light works by Le Parc. In 1966 he was awarded the Grand Prize for Painting at the Venice Biennale and in 1982 and 2022, was awarded the Diamond Konex Award, by Fundacion Konex in Argentina.
About Anthropic
Anthropic is an AI safety and research lab that provides reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. Their flagship product is Claude - an AI assistant that supports human ingenuity and sparks imagination. As a public benefit corporation, they are dedicated to safely guiding people through shifts in technology. Within their mission, they are also passionate about connecting people with the knowledge and resources they need to navigate new tools. Anthropic is pleased to help contribute to conversation and education around the arts and technology by supporting Tate. Learn more about Anthropic and Claude at anthropic.com.
Sasha de Marigny, Chief Communications & Brand Officer, Anthropic: “Julio Le Parc’s landmark show explores the interplay of light, movement, and colour and the unique role of the spectator. Anthropic is proud to partner with Tate in support of Le Parc's vision.”