Yesterday I went with my beloved @alejandraaraujo and @gabymusica to the Museo de la Estampa y del Diseño Carlos Cruz-Diez with the intention of going to the famous Chromosaturation Chamber, which is open to the public after having remained a while in maintenance.

The experience of going there for the first time is incomparable: the colors are so intense and surround you in such a way that you can even feel them. The transition from one color to another (green, red and blue) is like travelling from one world to another just a few metres away.

The Cruz-Diez website defines chromosaturation as follows:

These works relate to the idea that in the origin of every culture lies a primary event as a starting point. A simple situation that generates a whole system of thoughts, sensitivity, myths, etc.

The Chromosaturation is an artificial environment composed of three color chambers, one red, one green and one blue that immerse the visitor in a completely monochrome situation. This experience creates disturbances in the retina, accustomed to receive wide range of colors simultaneously. The Chromosaturation can act as a trigger, activating in the viewer the notion of color as a material or physical situation, going into space without the aid of any form or even without any support, regardless of cultural beliefs.

In this way, each color immerses the individual in a unique experience that is driven by the perception of the environment where they are; the adaptation to the color that surrounds them and the sensations that it triggers.

As its name indicates, the saturation of a single color in the eye, which is accustomed to perceiving a certain variety of colors constantly, places the viewer in a wonderful and strange situation, making it one of the most emblematic works of Carlos Cruz-Diez, the master of optical illusion.

Carlos Cruz-Diez

Source

Following in the footsteps of color artists such as Armando Reverón, Carlos Cruz-Diez is a Venezuelan plastic artist born in 1923, in Caracas, who has worked mainly with color and optical illusion throughout his career.

One of the primary focuses of Maestro Cruz-Diez has been to perceive color not only as an instrument for the artist and a way to complement their work, but as a whole. Color surrounds us and is a stimulus that can affect everything we perceive. The artist began his work with chromosaturation in 1965 with the purpose of demonstrating that color is light (and this is where we evoke Reverón) and can manifest itself in its purest form, covering the viewer in its atmosphere and altering the perception of their surroundings.

Thanks to Cruz-Diez, in the Chromosaturation Chambers we can live the color, because it becomes an experience that plays with space and time.

I invite you to live this fantastic sensory experience at the Museo de la Estampa y del Diseño Carlos Cruz-Diez, located on the Avenida Bolívar, in Caracas.

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Photographs in the Chromosaturation Chamber taken by @gabymusica with a Blu Vivo 5 cell phone.