V as Vinyl, V as Vasarely

by Vinyl Waller Admin

Victor Vasarely, the father of the Op'Art movement is also the godfather of many vinyl covers,  characterized by dancing geometrical figures.

Portrait de Vasarely, le père de l'op'art

Vasarely, the father of optical art or Op'Art.

His artwork is based on the geometrical rules which structure Nature. Geometry is a living and moving strength. Basic shapes such as circles or squares are stretched to become ovals or diamonds. Chromatic inversions arise and provide dynamism and movement to these shapes which become in turn tri-dimentional, convex or concave, opened or closed.

His geometry is a universal language, accessible to everyone and applied to everything.

9 vinyls-designVasarely-DisplayVinylWaller-OpArtDeco-ArmchairByBertoia-LampBySauze

 

Geometry plays along with optics, the visual perception, optical illusions and the perception of movement or kinetics. The power of Vasarely's artwork is to encompass both art and science, sensitivity and playfulness. He created artworks, accessible to everyone, away from easels, reproducible and applied to all the aspects of daily life. Books, vinyls, buildings, tableware collectons, decors, wall papers, brand logos are frequent examples ...

The artwork of Vasarely applied to vinyl covers provides music with a further dimension.

In the plastic art world of Vasarely, music benefits from a special standpoint where space and time merge within a common vocabulary: rythm, dance, fragmentation, serial composition, speed, rotation, lightness...

One sees what one hears, or the reverse, one hears what one sees...

Depending on the music, the creative cover-art of Vasarely underlines here the rythm, there the movement or the dance, elsewhere the serial modernity or a fragmentation into a cosmic infinity. His colours lead us to feel body sensations that go from warmth to coldness, from sadness to joy, from shade to light. His art structures take us away in centrifugal speeds or dizzying dives.
 

The covers designed by Vasarely 

The most famous cover designed by Vasarely

Album David Bowie by David Bowie - Display VinylWaller

 

The most famous cover by Vasarely is the album cover of the second Lp David Bowie. This album was called David Bowie when it was released in the U.K. in 1969 (by Philips), then Man of Words / Man of Music in the USA (by Mercury) and finally Space Oddity  in 1972 (reissued by RCA).

 

Album covers from contemporary music 

  • Terretektorh / Nomos Gamma by Iannis Xenakis (60ies)
  • Kontakte For Electronic Sounds, Piano And Percussion / Refrain For Three Instrumentalists by Aloys Kontarsky, Christoph Caskel, Karlheinz Stockhausen (1968) 

    Covers for classical music albums:

    • Trio Syrinx by the Trio Syrinx (1987) 
    • Chamber Concerto For 11 Instruments / Symphonic Variations by Neils Viggo Bentzon / The Royal Danish Orchestra under Jerzy Semkow.

    The Deutsche Grammophon has reissued her classical music catalogue and used Vasarely's artwork for the covers of their CDs.

    For more information...

    >> Exhibition about Vasarely Sharing shapes until May 6th 2019 at the Pompidou Centre in Paris

    >> Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence (South of France)

    >> Book :

    >>La prisonnière Movie directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot 1968, especially for the decors by Jacques Saulnier and the images by Andreas Winding (particularly interesting part of the movie showing visual activity during a comatose).

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