When we sat down with Spanish artist Felipe Pantone for the Radio Juxtapoz podcast in early 2020, before Covid altered all our lives forever, he was talking about the future. Not just a year from then, but the future as a conceptual era. “Are you not excited?! Look at all those fucking cables that you have around you,” Pantone said to us as we were, indeed, surrounded by a maze-like and chaotic set of recording wires going in every direction. “That's not going to be here. It's going to be way sleeker and nice. How can I not be excited about the future?”

This is why we love Felipe Pantone. He has taken the baton of kinetic and interactive art, funneled it through a new era of digital and experiential art, and transformed the way we think about op-art and its possibilities. That he came from graffiti culture absolutely makes sense; he is a man who knows how to place a piece of art and make you think about how perception means everything. It has been some years since his last book or catalog, but like technology, even in a few short years PRAESENTIA is a necessary and essential reboot to look at Pantone’s output. So much of what he has created involves thinking outside the box, reimaging what gallery art can be. Like the great op-artists before him, Pantone’s newest book is about perception and a bit of hallucinatory eye-candy. With a solo show at albertz benda in NYC this past spring, Pantone is at the height of his experimental powers, and like any good bit of tech, we all need an update on his work for our collection. —Evan Pricco

Available at BEYONDTHESTREETS.com