Commencing in the 1950s, Soto abandoned pictorial representation and began to create works that suggested the element of time in space. These works—many of which featured endless repetitions of precise parallel lines superimposed with three dimensional squares had the optical quality of producing spatial ambiguity. Soto’s aim—which would continue throughout his career—was to put color in motion. Thus, the combination of color in works like the present lot creates the sensation of optical movement propelled by vibrational strength. By the mid-1950s, Soto was at the forefront of abstraction as he went beyond kineticism, which was mainly concerned with producing a sense of destabilization. Instead, Soto strove to incorporate visible movement along with audience engagement. Between 1954 and 1958, Soto arrived at three pivotal concepts in his work: the use of varied materials, the introduction of planes to suggest a penetrable quality to the work, and light as a means to alter the object’s visual perception through the viewer’s movement. In 1961, he struck a close friendship with Nouvelle Realistes artists such as Yves Klein, Pier Restany and Jean Tingley, who shared the decision to use common materials to actively bring life and art closer together. Although Soto did not officially align himself with this or any group, he did exhibit extensively alongside the Nouvelle Realistes and other European and Latin American artists who were solely dedicated to abstraction. The period of time from the mid-1960s until the 1970s was pivotal during which he consolidated his creative and conceptual lexicon.

The present lot, Vibración vertical, is an exceptional example of Soto’s mature work that incorporates many of his characteristic techniques to produce pure abstraction and kineticism. The overlaying of pictorial elements through the use of basic materials—metal and wood—produce visible vibrations that mesmerize the viewer, affecting the physical space around the object. Interestingly, this and other works from the 1970s concluded Soto’s period in Paris, where he developed the core of his practice and became an internationally renowned artist after achieving his first retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1969.