Francisco Infante | Spiral

Lot description

signed in Cyrillic and dated ' 1965' l.r. tempera on paper The least Russian-sounding artist of this period, Francisco Infante-Arana was born in the suburbs of Moscow to a Spanish father and Russian mother, and was a key figure in the movement founded by Lev Nusberg in 1962, ' Dvizhenie' ('Movement'). Engaged in a wide range of activities ranging from early, static works in painting and sculpture to kinetic constructions, performance and installations, the story of this group is a fascinating chapter in the non-conformist story. Infante contributed to at least thirty unofficial exhibitions in the Soviet Union during the 1960s. He was interested in Land Art and became a talented photographer, but is best known to many collectors for his gorgeous tempera paintings of twisting shapes and bright geometric designs. From the outset, these appealed to scientists and engineers and were exhibited in professional 'alternative spaces' such as the Architects' Club in Leningrad (1965) and the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow (1966). He designed artificial systems consisting of moving and revolving forms constructed out of concrete material as well as color, light, and sound. The 'Spiral' series of 1965 is a classic example of his interest in mobile and dynamic systems, or 'kinetic' art, combined with his obsession with the idea of infinity. 'In my last years of studies', Infante recalled in his autobiography, 'I was struck by the strange anxiety, provoked by a deep personal realization, that the world is infinite. This agitation didn't go away and was so strong, that I was seeking to express it through my works'.  With its infinite tendency, the perfectly balanced spiral was the ideal motif for exploring this dizzying concept: ‘the result is a line turning endlessly in space which, in its momentum, elicits associations with other cosmic oppositions such as good and evil, life and death’ (see https://monoskop.org/Francisco_Infante).