Press Release
9 April 2014
DAZZLE SHIP COMMISSION FOR LIVERPOOL
BIENNIAL
Liverpool Biennial with Tate Liverpool and 14-18 NOW, the official cultural programme
for the First World War Centenary Commemorations, are co-commissioning one of the
major figures of contemporary art, Carlos Cruz-Diez, to paint a version of a ‘Dazzle
Ship’ in partnership with National Museums Liverpool.
The Edmund Gardner vessel is conserved by Merseyside Maritime Museum and will be
‘dazzled’ in dry dock adjacent to Albert Dock Liverpool.
The ‘dazzle’ technique, immortalised in Alfred Wadsworth’s 1918 painting Dazzle-ship
in Drydock at Liverpool, was undertaken and inspired by artists of the time. Wadsworth
himself supervised the camouflaging of over 2,000 warships.
Unlike other forms of camouflage, dazzle works not by concealing but by making it
difficult to estimate a target’s range, speed and direction. Artist Norman Wilkinson,
credited with inventing the technique, explained that dazzle was intended primarily to
mislead the enemy: each ship’s dazzle pattern was unique in order to avoid making
classes of ships instantly recognisable to the opposition.
Carlos Cruz-Diez (Caracas, 1923) has lived and worked in Paris since 1960. His artistic
roots reach back to the Movimiento Cinético [Kinetic Movement] of the 1950s and
1960s. As his thinking on the visual arts has evolved, his ideas have changed attitudes
on how colour is perceived in art. According to his artist’s statement, colour is an
autonomous reality, devoid of anecdotes, that evolves in real time and space with no
need of form or support. Carlos Cruz-Diez’s artistic proposal is based on eight research
projects that reveal the myriad ways in which colour behaves: Couleur Additive
[Additive Colour], Physichromie, Induction Chromatique [Chromatic Induction],
Chromointerférence, Transchromie, Chromosaturation, Chromoscope, and Couleur
dans l’espace [Colour in Space].
His works are part of the permanent collections at institutions such as: Museum of
Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris;
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne; Musée d’Art
Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Among his recent exhibitions are: "Carlos Cruz-Diez:
Color in Space and Time", Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States (2011),
"Carlos Cruz-Diez: El color en el espacio y en el tiempo", Museo de Arte
Latinoamericano (MALBA - Fundación Constantini), Buenos Aires, Argentina (2011),
"Cruz-Diez: Color in Space", Jeonbuk Province Art Museum, Jeonbuk, South Korea
(2012), “Carlos Cruz-Diez: A cor no espaço e no tempo” Pinacoteca do estado Sao
Paulo, Brazil (2012), "Carlos Cruz-Diez: Circumstance and Ambiguity of Color", Central
Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA Museum), Beijing, China (2013), “Light Show”, Hayward
Gallery, London, U.K. (2013), “La Invención Concreta: Colección Patricia Phelps de
Cisneros”, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2013),
“Dynamo. Un siècle de lumière et de mouvement dans l’art. 1913-2013”, Galeries
nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, France (2013)
Liverpool Biennial’s dazzle ship is part of Monuments from the Future: a new
commissioning initiative between Tate Liverpool and the Biennial which invites artists
and architects to bring large-scale imaginary monuments from the future into the
present. In order to fulfil this paradoxical task, artists will collaborate with professional
futurologists (social scientists who predict possible future scenarios) to determine
possible future circumstances and set of events for which a new monument can be
imagined and produced. This project will slowly turn Liverpool into a sci-fi sculpture park
making use of Liverpool’s industrial archaeology to celebrate its possible new futures.
Media Enquiries:
Erica Bolton/Jane Quinn
Bolton & Quinn
+44 (0) 20 7221 5000
erica@boltonquinn.com / jq@boltonquinn.com
Notes to Editors:
First World War Centenary Partnership Programme
14-18 NOW is a member of the First World War Centenary Partnership and is an
independent programme hosted within Imperial War Museums.
The First World War Centenary Partnership was established by IWM (Imperial War
Museums) in 2010 and to date has over 2,500 members from across 45 countries. The
Partnership is presenting a collective programme of activities and events to mark the
centenary, developed at grass roots levels. This diverse and far-reaching programme
has been developed to reflect how people want to remember, commemorate and
debate the conflict in their own communities, in a way that is meaningful for them.
1914.org is the official website for the First World War Centenary Partnership.
Throughout the centenary new events and activities will be added each week to the
events calendar, produced in partnership with Culture 24.
A full press pack for 14-18 NOW is available, please contact the press office for more
details.
Carlos Cruz-Diez - Biography
Carlos Cruz-Diez born in Caracas, 1923; lives in Paris.
Cruz-Diez is one of the great figures of kinetic-optic art. His art proposal, one of the
most original of that movement, reveals him as one of the last colour. His research is
based on three chromatic conditions: subtractive, additive and reflected, and has
brought art a new way of understanding the phenomenon of colour, greatly expanding
its perceptual universe.
Cruz-Diez's work revolves around colour conceived as an autonomous reality,
progressing in space and real time without past or future - in a perpetual present. In his
works, colour appears as a reality that can exist without the help of traditional form.
Cruz-Diez´s works are in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Museum
of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Tate, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris;
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Musée d´Art Contemporain de Montreal; WallrafRichartz Museum, Cologne; and the Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
In my works, colour appears and disappears in the course of the dialogue that is
generated in real time and space. Simultaneously, it unquestionably appears that the
acquired information as well as the knowledge stored in the course of our living
experience, aren’t probably true ... at least partially.
It is also possible that with colour, approached through a "basic vision" devoid of
predetermined meaning, we are able to awaken other sensitive apprehension
mechanisms more subtle and complex than those imposed by cultural conditioning and
mass information of contemporary societies.
Carlos Cruz-Diez in Réflexion sur la couleur, Édition des Beaux-Arts, 2013 [or. ed.
1989)
The Carlos-Cruz Foundation
The Cruz-Diez Foundation is an organisation committed to preserving, developing,
exhibiting, and researching the artistic and conceptual legacy of Carlos Cruz-Diez, one
of the twentieth century’s seminal thinkers in the field of color.
We believe that the arts are the finest communication system ever invented by
mankind. Our goal is to stimulate and nurture the kind of intellectual inquiry that leads
to new forms of expression.
About Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial, an ongoing platform for research, commissioning and presenting
international art, education and debate, is the UK Biennial of Contemporary Art. In
2012, it attracted over half a million visitors over its ten weeks run and since its
founding in 1999, has shown the work of over 350 artists from 72 countries. Since
2004, Liverpool Biennial has contributed over £98.9 million to Liverpool’s economy.
Liverpool today offers the richest visual arts environment anywhere in the UK outside
London. It has more galleries and museums, and commissions more new art than any
other city except the capital and was European Capital of Culture in 2008. Liverpool
Biennial festival takes place in a wide range of locations across the city, from
established museums and galleries to unusual and unexpected place
Liverpool Biennial is funded and supported by:
Founding Supporter
James Moores
The Dazzle Ship project is also funded and supported by: