Walk-on art in Vienna

Tangible Art - Promenade Chromatique Vienne

© Carlos Cruz-Diez  Adagp, Paris 2019

Promenade Chromatique Vienne is the title of a floor installation 160 square metres in size created by Carlos Cruz-Diez, well-known artist and researcher of colour, and put in place at the entrance of the mumok art museum in Vienna for its “Vertigo Op Art and a History of Deception 1520–1970” show. Forster supplied the sheeting for Ambient Art Werbe GmbH.

Promenade Chromatique Vienne, created specifically for mumok, brings alive an optical phenomenon known as afterimage or persistent retinal image: when the observer focuses on a red spot for some seconds before turning away, the image is retained for a short moment – in green, the complementary colour. The installation’s linear structures produce the afterimage, creating fascinating effects for the viewer – Op Art, or exactly what the show promises.

Vehement effects and optical deception

Op Art is an art movement that creates surprising or irritating optical effects, a vision of movement, flashing and optical deception through the use of abstract patterns and geometric shapes. The show got its title from Alfred Hitchcock’s famous 1958 movie. Same as the film, the show plays with the mix-up of disorientation and deception.

Floor sheeting in a public space – what are the key points to remember?

You can certainly get an attack of vertigo from the floor sheeting printed by Forster for the Promenade Chromatique Vienne and supplied exactly to requirements to its customer Ambient Art Werbe GmbH. It could not just be any sheeting. Faced with the enormous dimensions in the public space it needed to be non-skidding to ensure that users would be safe. And it needed to hold out against the crowds of visitors to the mumok, as well as against the weather. These criteria resulted in the choice of high-performance 3M floor sheeting. The installation is open to all comers to the courtyard of the Museumquartier in Vienna where it enchants visitors until 26 October 2019.

[Translate to Englisch:] © Carlos Cruz-Diez Adagp, Paris 2019

[Translate to Englisch:] © Carlos Cruz-Diez Adagp, Paris 2019

[Translate to Englisch:] © Marina Apollonio