Bridget Riley: The Responsive Eye: Paintings and Studies 1961–1966 | New York

 

Marking sixty years since Bridget Riley’s inclusion in the landmark 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, this exhibition features an impressive selection of early black-and-white paintings and studies from 1961–1966.

 

The exhibition at MoMA was of huge consequence to Riley’s career and subsequent international reputation. It was a powerful endorsement by the great institution, which reproduced Current (1964) on the catalogue cover and whose curator, William C. Seitz, singled the artist out in the catalogue essay. The years surrounding this watershed moment were defined by a prolific period of experimentation. In 1961, Riley began her practice of pure abstraction in a limited palette of black-and-white, an aesthetic enquiry that lasted until 1966 when the artist began to introduce red and blue into her work.

 

The exhibition is curated with the support of Bridget Riley and her studio and includes five important paintings: Horizontal Vibrations [First Version] (1961), Black to White Discs (1962), Burn (1964), Pause (1964), and Blaze 4 (1964). Displayed alongside related studies, the show provides insight into this important period. During these years, Riley developed a unique visual language—manipulating and combining fundamental shapes to activate internal patterns of perception. These core principles have sustained her practice and continue to inform her work today

 

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