GRAV

 
“Le Magasin”
What’s on in France, London, October-November 1998, p.29 (excerpt)

Le Magasin, otherwise known as the Centre National d'Art contemporain de Grenoble, is certainly not your average art gallery. Housed in an enormous warehouse built by the atelier of Gustave Eiffel, the museum presents exhibitions of modern art with a special focus on installations. The museum plays host to 12 different temporary exhibitions each year which are renewed every three months. Since 1996 they have also hosted a number of extra muros projects.
There is no permanent collection at Le Magasin, so what you see depends entirely on when you go. The line up for September and October focuses on four exhibitions - two concentrating on optical and kinetic art.
GRAV presents the work of a number of artists, the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel. The group, comprising Horacio Garcia Rossi, Julio le Parc, François Morellet, Francisco Sobrino, Joel Stein and Yvaral was formed in the sixties to create a number of highly original works including mobiles, labyrinths, sets of stairs and exhibits that can be activated by those viewing them (right). Their work arose from a shared interest in the principles of game, movement, optical work and participation, along with an interest in a different vision of the status of art and its relation to its public.
Highlights include François Morellet’s 64 bulbs - all of which switch on and off to four superimposed rhythms. In other rooms visitors can also play with abacus and try to decipher optically distorted phenomena. (...)