Soto : a kinetic journey

Jesús Rafael Soto, a leading figure in abstract art and kinetic art (1923–2005)

Having settled in Paris in 1950, the Venezuelan-born artist distinguished himself through paintings, reliefs, and sculptures whose geometric variations trap the gaze in colorful patterns that shift with our slightest movements.

An iconic series 

His most remarkable series, begun in 1967 and soon titled "Pénétrable", saw its first monumental version on the forecourt of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1969. It culminated notably with the yellow "Pénétrable BBL" in 1999, now on display at the Cité de l’Architecture. This event is part of the program dedicated to the dialogue between architecture and contemporary art at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, launched in 2025.

An immersive experience 

Composed of thousands of thin, flexible yellow tubes suspended from a metal structure, the work is less a sculpture to be contemplated than an immersive “environment,” at once visual, mobile, and tactile. For a "Pénétrable" offers us an experience that unfolds on the scale of real space and architecture, within a vibrant swarm of supple lines that one traverses like a forest, a river, or even a fog.

From the outside, the "Pénétrable" appears as a simple rectangular prism, a vast, vibrant, colorful volume of over 150 cubic meters. Open on all sides, it invites us to step inside and move about freely. Very quickly, the structure’s apparent stability vanishes: the experience is fluid and constantly unfolding. The structure’s contours fade, human silhouettes blur, and distances become uncertain.

A physical and sensory experience 

When several people move through this shared space, they no longer merely breathe the same air but share the same space. The body itself becomes an instrument for perceiving pure color, now atmospheric and spatialized: we walk, brush against, and feel the contact of the long threads on our skin, just as our eyes perceive the constant pulsations of color. The experience thus engages both touch and our bodily awareness, constantly brushed by the colored threads.

A fresh perspective  

While it may prove playful and pleasant, this particular immersion overturns the traditional aesthetic relationship in that it is the work that surrounds the viewer, rather than the viewer facing the work or walking around it. Each passage produces a different configuration, and the object constantly eludes us. In essence, Soto creates a space that is neither stable nor homogeneous, where the usual boundaries between seeing, touching, and inhabiting are highly porous.