Good Vibrations at MoMA: Jesús Rafael Soto and Bridget Riley in Dialogue

On the fourth floor of MoMA, in gallery 410 of the David Geffen Wing, Good Vibrations brings together the work of Jesús Rafael Soto and Bridget Riley, two major figures of international art scene who, despite never meeting, share a striking visual and conceptual dialogue.

Emerging in the 1950s and 1960s, Soto and Riley each developed a distinct artistic language rooted in perception and movement. Their practices were informed by scientific theories of vision and by a deep interest in how lines, intervals, and patterns could activate the viewer’s eye. In both cases, the artwork is not static. It shifts, vibrates, and seems to move as we stand before it.

For Soto, this exploration was closely tied to the idea of transformation. As he explained, what interested him was the possibility of taking a simple element—a line, a piece of wood, a bit of metal—and turning it into vibration. His work dissolves the solidity of matter and invites the viewer into a dynamic spatial experience. A Venezuelan artist based in Paris, Soto was part of the landmark 1955 exhibition Le Mouvement at Galerie Denise René, a key moment in the international recognition of optical and kinetic art.

Bridget Riley, working in London, approached perception through a different but equally powerful formal discipline. Her paintings are built through repetition, rhythm, and precision, creating optical tensions that can feel almost physical. Riley spoke of the “colossal energies” at play in the units, intervals, and lines of her compositions. Her inclusion in MoMA’s historic 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye helped bring Op art and its psychologically disorienting geometries into the broader public imagination.

Seen together, Soto and Riley reveal two distinct approaches to visual instability.

Soto often extends movement into space itself, while Riley compresses it into the surface of the painting. Yet both challenge the idea of the artwork as a fixed object. Instead, they offer an art of activation—one that depends on the eye, the body, and the shifting nature of perception.

Good Vibrations is a reminder that movement in art does not always require actual motion. Sometimes, it happens entirely within the experience of looking.