Buffalo AKG Art Museum is organizing the exhibition Electric Op. This will be the first major exhibition to provide a comprehensive overview of Op (short for Optical) art and establish its ties with electronic media of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing upon its vast collection of Op art, the museum will display over 100 pieces in tracing the six-decade history of this art form.

The Op art movement grew out of the accelerated development of digital and computer technologies during the 1960s, which inspired artists to explore these new forms of media and integrate them into works which confound our vision. Visual artists played with electric colors that vibrate and move with machine-like precision, while sculptors availed themselves of new and futuristic materials to create mechanical and electronic objects.

Gerald Oster, Moirage, 1967. 16mm film and digital transfer, color, sound. Courtesy of the artist and Buffalo AKG Art Museum.

The exhibition will cover over 9,000 square feet of space at the museum's new Jeffrey B. Gundlach Building, where dynamic paintings and sculptures are interspersed with analog videos and computer-generated films, highlighting how Op art became “Electric”. Artists in the exhibition include Bridget Riley, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Bill Viola and many others.

Established in 1862, Buffalo AKG Art Museum is one of the oldest public art institutions in the United States that actively cultivates contemporary art. The exhibition Electric Op opens on September 27, 2024 and will remain on view through January 2025. In April 2025 the exhibition will travel to Musée d'arts de Nantes. More information about this exhibition and other events at Buffalo AKG Art Museum can be accessed on their site.

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