iTate ModernBankside
Julio Le Parc: Light. Colour. Action.
An immersive retrospective of seven decades of kinetic and interactive works, with light sculptures and geometric paintings that turn viewers into participants.
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One 1959 painting looks at first like "nothing so much as a gingham tablecloth", in the Observer's words, then starts to flicker. Later you walk behind a red Perspex screen of reflective blades and watch your own silhouette break into pieces.
Le Parc, who died in May aged 97, days before it opened, gets more than 60 works from seven decades on Level 4 of the Blavatnik Building. It runs from black-and-white optical paintings through rooms of moving light to a games room of push-button pieces, and ends on colour. After years of "please don't touch" signs, this is the Tate show that wants you to press the buttons.
The Guardian found it "riotous good fun"; the Telegraph's Alastair Sooke called it "less fun-house, more laboratory of ideas". The catch is the last room, which the Observer found "kitsch", like "prog rock album covers from the 1970s". Tickets are £15 (£13 concessions, £5 on Tate Collective for 16 to 25s); open until 21:00 on Fridays and Saturdays.
Look for
Continual Light Cylinder (1962)
Prisms, mirrors, rotators and bulbs throw what the Observer called "a continuously changing aurora" of light around an enormous circle.
Vibrating Light, Tulles
Revolving shutters, net curtains and full-length mirrors make bars of light that feel like being inside a cage that is shaken up and down.
Screen with Reflective Blades
Walk behind this red Perspex screen and your silhouette splits into a row of fragments.
The games room
Push a button and Ribbons in the Wind unrolls its paper erratically, while Transformable Face rearranges itself with magnets.
Blue Sphere
It ripples lines of light over the walls and over you, though Studio International found its square room too tight to walk around.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Teenagers
Skip if
You want quiet contemplation: many works are push-button games, and visitors crowd round them.
With kids
The Observer called it "art for the whole family", and kids can press the buttons that set the games-room works moving. Tate also runs a family tour of the show.
Free in the same building
- The Collection: Modern and Contemporary ArtFree permanent displays spanning Picasso, Dalí, Rothko and Warhol to the latest contemporary work across two interconnected buildings.
- The TanksThe world's first permanent museum galleries for live art, performance, installation, and film, housed in vast industrial oil tanks.
Also at Tate Modern
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Image credits
8
- Julio Le Parc: Light. Colour. Action.Lent by the Atelier Le Parc 2026 © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2026
- By Appointment Only: Romani Art, Culture & Heritage© London Museum
- Salman Toor: Someone Like You© Salman Toor; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Genevieve Hanson
- Tate ModernAcabashi / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Hayward GalleryMykReeve / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- London MuseumMatt Brown / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Courtauld GalleryAnthony O'Neil / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Barbican CentreJulian Herzog / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0