Rétina 319-K

The painting Rétina 319-K (1966) testifies to a key moment in Marcel Barbeau’s career. While in New York, where he lived from 1964 to 1968, Barbeau joined the art network that was then in vogue there and gained international recognition. After a first solo exhibition at the East Hampton Gallery, which represented him from 1965 to 1970, the positive criticism of the time associated his latest production with the Op Art (or optical art) movement, then in full swing in the United States. Barbeau would in fact become a pioneer of the movement in Canada. Taking part in many Op Art exhibitions in the United States, he stood out from his contemporaries for his more intuitive and visceral approach, despite the “ordered appearance” of the paintings. Perceptual duality lies at the heart of his work, sustained by particularly bright linear and chromatic patterns. The geometric composition in Rétina 319¬K introduces the effect of a ricochet from one angle to another and imbues the work with a dynamism comparable to the composition in Abianourme (1966, permanent collection of the Hart House, University of Toronto), reproduced in the monograph Marcel Barbeau: Le regard en fugue, where we see the artist in front of his painting in his Union Square studio in the heart of Manhattan. Complementary colours have the high ground in Rétina 319-K’s bold configuration, in which the black segment makes a marked entry on the left of the canvas. This slanting design acts like a velvet theatre curtain, revealing the dramatic aspect of a work that remains as fresh and striking as the day it was produced.