Sphère-trame

Sphére-Trame, meaning ‘Sphere-Texture’, is made up of stainless steel rods in gradually differing lengths to create a sphere in a three-dimensional grid. The mobile is hung at eye-level so it gently moves, creating a shifting optical effect as the light bounces from the rods. Morellet wanted to democratise the viewing experience of art, so created this work with no privileged viewpoint, instead the viewer interacts with it from any angle. The movement involved the viewer in a more active way, as Morellet wrote:

Real movement does away with the fixed, immovable character of the work of art. The artist no longer imposes a right moment that he has arbitrarily chosen. Instead he suggests a series of situations which develop outside himself. [1]

The mobile was made as a multiple in an edition of 200 by Galerie Denise René. Denise René worked with a number of artists to create multiples, including Victor Vasarely [31237]. Between 1962 and 1966 Morellet and René made a number of editions of Sphéres-Trames in varying sizes; they are now his best-known works. Morellet was interested in working with multiples as he wanted to disrupt the idea of the artist genius, and instead facilitate machine production and audience participation. Morellet co-founded the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), a group of eleven radical kinetic artists who shared this philosophy, including Julio Le Parc, Vera Molnar and Yvaral.

Tania Moore, June 2021

[1] François Morellet, ‘The choice in present-day art’ in Anthony Hill (ed.) DATA: Directions in art, theory and aesthetics; an anthology (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), p.238.

[2] François Morellet quoted in Art Unlimited: Multiples of the 1960s and 1990s (London: The South Bank Centre, 1994), p.38.