Op Art Op art, also known as optical art, is a genre of visual art, especially painting, that makes use of optical illusions. Op art is also known as geometric abstraction and hard-edge abstraction, although the preferred term for it is perceptual abstraction. "Optical Art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing.“ Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping. Bridget Riley, Movement in Squares, OP ART

Op Art is derived from the constructivist practices of the Bauhaus. This German school, founded by Walter Gropius, stressed the relationship of form and function within a framework of analysis and rationality. Students were taught to focus on the overall design, or entire composition, in order to present unified works. When the Bauhaus was forced to close in 1933, many of its instructors fled to the United States where the movement took root in Chicago, where Anni and Josef Albers would come to teach. An optical illusion by Hungarian-born artist Victor Vasarely

Bridget Riley, Cataract 3, OP ART

Bridget Riley, Arrest 1, OP ART

Jenny Holzer As a graduate of Ohio University, the main focus of Jenny Holzer has been on the investigation of ways to disseminate ideas within public space. Since the late seventies, she has been working in the street and in public buildings, using media such as, LCD displays (e.g., in Times Square, New York) posters and stickers (applied to such urban elements as telephone booths or parking meters), these artworks art intended to stimulate awareness of our social conditioning as conveyed by the very landscape in which we may be confronted by them."

EXPRESSING ANGER IS NECESSARY LABOR IS A LIFE-DESTROYING ACTIVITY DECENCY IS A RELATIVE THING LEISURE TIME IS A GIGANTIC SMOKE SCREEN IDEALS ARE REPLACED BY CONVENTIONAL GOALS AT A CERTAIN AGE FEAR IS THE GREATEST INCAPACITATOR THE WORLD OPERATES ACCORDING TO DISCOVERABLE LAWS REVOLUTION BEGINS WITH CHANGES IN THE INDIVIDUAL DISGUST IS THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO MOST SITUATIONS IT IS MAN'S FATE TO OUTSMART HIMSELF IT'S VITAL TO LIVE IN HARMONY WITH NATURE MONEY CREATES TASTE MOSTLY YOU SHOULD MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS OLD FRIENDS ARE BETTER LEFT IN THE PAST YOUR OLDEST FEARS ARE THE WORST ONES

Land Art, Earthworks or Earth Art is an art movement which emerged in America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. Sculptures are not placed in the landscape, rather the landscape is the very means of their creation. The works frequently exist in the open, located well away from civilization, left to change and erosion under natural conditions. Earthworks Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, EARTHWORKS

Robert Smithson, 1969.

Unidentified, Marree Man (Stuart’s Giant) Discover June 26, 1998 EARTHWORKS

Andy Goldsworthy

Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, EARTHWORKS

Four cast concrete, 18 ft. tunnels with open ends aligned with the points on the horizon where the sun rises and sets at the winter and summer solstices. Penetrating the tunnels are holes with diameters of 7 to 10 inches in the patterns of the four constellations of; Capricorn, Draco, Columbia and Perseus. Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels, EARTHWORKS