Hidroluz [Hydrolight]

Science, or more specifically science fiction, has been at the heart of Gyula Kosice’s work since he co-founded the avant-garde Madí movement in Buenos Aires in 1946. At that time he was a pioneer in introducing movement into sculpture and letting the viewer manipulate the work. By the 1960s he was experimenting with modern materials like Plexiglas, neon, and electrical motors. His utopian belief in the ability of science to create new and better worlds led in the early 1970s to his project for the Hydrospatial City, an imaginary environment suspended in space where artworks are no longer necessary because the aesthetic experience has been dissolved into everyday life. Hidroluz with its modern materials is typical of the work he was making as he developed his plans for the City. The jet of water against the Plexiglas sphere creates an infinite variety of forms and a dematerialized sculptural experience. While many of Kosice’s avant-garde colleagues of the 1940s abandoned art altogether or turned to more conventional work, Kosice continued to believe in the transformative power of art and the need to create new utopian models for living. As much as a wall relief, Hidroluz can be considered a fragment of a new living environment.