Artist Carlos Cruz-Diez Put a Kinetic Artwork Inside a Watch

Carlos Cruz-Diez's 2019 limited edition collaboration with Hublot Famed kinetic artist Carlos Cruz-Diez-who passed away this past July at the age of 95-once said that a work of art "Needs the viewer's participation in order to become real It's not about passive contemplation, but an active participation" Cruz-Diez, a Venezuelan artist who settled in Paris in the 1960s, was a leader of the Op Art Movement, and made dizzyingly abstract work in which rigid lines of color swirl into one another.

Works like Cruz-Diez's "Physichromies" series, in which strips of multi-colored cardboard and plexiglass create a disorienting effect, are rendered with extreme precision As opposed to a simple flat rendering on a watch face, they're little works of kinetic art-as the hands of the watch turn, different-colored discs come forward, creating a constantly changing composition "I think this kind of kinetic output works really well in a watch.

To just do a painting in a watch is nothing special But this is specific, and so it works." Cruz-Diez strongly believed that art and life were one and the same, bringing his family into his studios to help with his work, a contrast to the stereotype of the neglectful, solitary male artist. . Source