Art of the Space Age

Art of the Space Age brought together 58 works from the Peter Stuyvesant Trust showcasing optical and kinetic art from the 1950s and 1960s. Pioneers of Op Art including Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely were hung alongside Alexander Calder’s mobile Peacock 1950, Martha Boto’s mechanical light sculpture Intercessions lumineuse 1964 and geometric abstract painting by the short lived, radical Spanish art collective Equipo 57.

Neville Dubow wrote in the exhibition’s catalogue:

Love it or hate it, this exhibition will make people think and it should open up eyes to a whole new range of visual stimuli which hitherto had been taken for granted or not seen at all. A new movement in art never invalidates the worth of what has gone before. It merely gives it a new dimension and perspective. Op and kinetic art take nothing away from the past. But they do enable us to understand an important aspect of the present and perhaps even point some warning signals for the future.

This collection belongs to the Peter Stuyvesant Trust in Amsterdam, Zurich and New York and has been brought into Australia by the Australian division of the Trust for display in the South Australian Art Gallery, the Art Centre, Melbourne, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Western Australian Art Gallery and the Queensland Art Gallery.