Jesús Rafael Soto

Jesús Rafel Soto (Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, June 5, 1923 / Paris, France, January 14, 2005) was a Venezuelan artist, an important figure in kinetic art that began and developed in the late 1950s. He studied at the Escuela de Arte in Caracas, where he meets Carlos Cruz-Diez and Alejandro Otero. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Soto's works were exhibited in places such as the MOMA and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, and the 1966 Venice Biennale and the 1996 São Paulo Biennale. Soto was particularly famous. for his "penetratable" sculptures within which people can walk and interact. It has been said that Soto's art is inseparable from the observer, it can only be complete with the illusion perceived by the mind as a result of the observation. A work by Soto adorns the ceiling of the main hall of the Teatro Teresa Carreño, in Caracas, and another, a part of the interior of the Chacaito station of the Caracas Metro. The latter extends to the outside of the station and can be seen from the surface, in Plaza Brión de Chacaíto. The Esfera Caracas is located on the Francisco Fajardo Highway, which was recently rebuilt. In his honor, the Venezuelan government inaugurated the Jesús Soto Museum in Ciudad Bolívar in 1973.