“How much can it be worth? I don’t know… Four million dollars? Maybe; yes: four million dollars. Dad was a very generous person.” Carlos Cruz-Diez, son of teacher Carlos Cruz-Diez, can’t stop celebrating the new public works in Bogotá. The main square of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University now has a color circle that will undoubtedly become a new reference point in the city. It’s your new chromatic induction ring.
On the opening day last Thursday, guests, students, teachers and passersby didn’t stop taking photos for Instagram or Facebook. In a second there were a good number of selfies, general shots 30 meters in diameter and 3 meters wide or photos of his shoes next to the colored mosaics that make up the work. Cruz-Diez delivered the final plans for the work in 2014 but the idea started in 1998, first he thought of making a billboard but then he decided to be more ambitious, why not?
Cruz-Diez (1923-2019) was an art revolutionary; Next to Jesús Soto they made color and all their possibilities are conquering the world. They were the two great masters of kinetic art. The spearhead of a movement that shook the world. His works have managed to evoke smiles that make people look at art from top to bottom, side to side; They made abstract art a game that would leave the Impressionists on the table. Seeing a work by Cruz-Diez is an endless pleasure; his works change with the sunlight, with the perspective or simply with walking a step.
Carlos Cruz Ten
Cruz-Diez—also—was a pioneer of public art; he detested the ugliness and poverty of Caracas’ popular neighborhoods. Early in his career his struggles were figurative, he did works to denounce misery, but he soon realized it was useless; he discovered color and its possibilities, but also wanted to draw the attention of people outside of the art circus, “there are 260 public works by dad, well: now 261,” says his son with a laugh.
In Tadeo Square there is also a lively exhibition by the Fotomuseo, with images of various public works by Cruz-Díez; Train stations in France, buildings in São Paulo or Zurich, monuments in Paris or the spectacular floor of the pedestrian crossings of the Marlins baseball stadium: “When Dad spoke to the owner of the team, he had to admit that he was a fan of the Yankees,” says his son laughing. The plant has 1,672 square meters. And Cruz-Diez undoubtedly hit several home runs for the team that Édgar Rentería was world champion on.
The Venezuelan artist, “universal because he belongs to all of us”, his son corrects me, died in 2019. He was 94 years old and his head was still a whirlwind of ideas. “The last thing he did in the hospital bed was a drawing of one of the projects my older brother Jorge had: a museum of his work. I have this drawing,” says Cruz-Diez Jr.
Work changes when people leave. Photo: Courtesy
Carlos Cruz-Díez Delgado is 70 years old and grew up surrounded by his father’s fantastic pieces, constant movement between Caracas, Barcelona and Paris, and the belief that his home and workshop were the same. “Mom, Mirtha Delgado and Dad loved music and were surrounded by people. Jesús Soto for example was a great guitarist. In Paris the workshop was full of artists. I still remember the wonderful barbecues made by Argentinian Julio Alpuy. They all shared their ideas. They didn’t compete with each other. During the Renaissance, works of art were created by hundreds of people.
Then art became a matter of lonely beings locked in an attic. Dad, on the other hand, always had 20 people in the workshop, young people from all over the world, Mexico, Portugal, France, Colombia… I’ve worked with him since I was 20 years old. In addition, he was a brilliant inventor: his works cannot be copied or falsified because he himself created the machines that made the parts of his pieces, aluminum folding machines, frames; He gave them names like The Crab, hehehe: it was a machine that had looong legs”.
details of the work. Photo: courtesy of U. Jorge Tadeo Lozano
The chromatic induction ring is made of glass mosaics manufactured by a French factory since the 19th century. “In 30 years they will be the same and if they need to be replaced the factory will continue; They are the same mosaics that were used in the works at Maiquetía Airport in 1978 and that, despite everything, are still there”.
Cruz-Diez had four workshops that are still fully operational: Panama, Miami, Caracas and Paris. “Our mission is to manage father’s work; preserve its legacy and its place in history even if it is already in Larousse. His work has sold at auction for over a million dollars and we have a great responsibility to collectors. You have to manage your exhibitions in museums and galleries. Perform maintenance on public works and have the capacity to execute those that are still in the pipeline. There are even highway projects. He was very neat: he made the plans and left instructions down to the millimeter. His work has this requirement: a poorly placed dot destroys the entire effect; It’s like going down a flight of stairs and one step is two millimeters higher: you fall.”
Chromatic induction ring was in the archives of Cruz Díez and Tadeo Lozano. The current rector, Carlos Sánchez Gaitán, took over the baton of the project and decided to continue it in the pandemic so that the reality of the return to face-to-face teaching would be friendlier for the university community and the citizens of Bogota in general: the square is public. He received district permits and university resources to install the 408,000 mosaics that make up the work. There were people from the workshop and Colombian artists in the gathering. “It was amazing when it came full circle. It’s perfect,” he says. Sánchez cannot hide his emotions: “We will have academic activities in the Cruz-Díez area throughout the year”.
The workshop and the foundation are willing to take care of the maintenance of the work, but they are also sure that it will be a space for the people. “The other day in Andorra I saw an impeccable work that hasn’t been serviced for 30 years, but today it even has its stamps on it and is part of its identity: people clean and care for it. Same thing happens in the Pyrenees: Dad has been working with all the handymen in town and they are doing maintenance on him. This is the meaning of art in public space; that the square becomes a meeting place, concerts, theater: a place of ideas”.
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