Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt (1 August 1912 – 17 September 1994), known as Gego, was a modern German-Venezuelan
visual artist.[1] Gego is perhaps best known for her geometric and
kinetic sculptures made in the 1960s and 1970s, which she described as "drawings without paper".[2]
Early life
Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt, who went by "Gego", was born on 1 August 1912 in
Hamburg,
Germany into a
Jewish family.[citation needed] She was the sixth of seven children of Eduard Martin Goldschmidt and Elizabeth Hanne Adeline Dehn.[3] Although she was the niece of the medieval art historian
Adolf Goldschmidt, who taught at the University of Berlin, she decided to attend the
Technische Hochschule of Stuttgart[4] in 1932, where she was taught by the well-known German architect
Paul Bonatz.[citation needed] In 1938, she earned a diploma in both architecture and engineering.[5]
Because her family was Jewish, life became very difficult once the
Nazis gained power in 1933. Her German citizenship was nullified in 1935,[6] and she was forced to leave the country. She found work in 1939 in Venezuela as an architect[7] and gained Venezuelan citizenship in 1952.[citation needed] Her parents and siblings all managed to leave Germany by June 1940 mostly settling in England and California. Some close relatives chose to stay in Germany unaware they would soon be murdered.[8]
In 1987, Professor Frithjof Trapp of the
University of Hamburg led an investigation called "Exile and Emigration of Hamburg Jews," which he hoped would explain the lives of these Jews. Gego was one person whom he hoped to investigate.[citation needed] After several letters to her home, she finally agreed to respond but the letter was never mailed and instead stayed in her collection of notes. In her testimony, "Reflection on my origins and encounters in life," Gego described how her family identified with
German society. She described, in detail, her education history and her departure from Germany.[9]
Importance of education
After moving to
Caracas, Venezuela, Gego taught at the College of Architecture and City Planning at the
Central University of Venezuela between 1958 and 1967.[3] Additionally, between 1964 and 1977, she taught at the Neumann Institute of Design, an institution where many other well-known artists, such as
Harry Abend, a fellow European-born artist, also taught. Gego taught "Bidimensional and Three-Dimensional Form" and "Spatial Solutions" and published two articles between 1971 and 1977.[5]
In 1948, Venezuelan president
Rómulo Gallegos was overthrown by a
military coup.[10] Gego knew that, after a time of crisis, students become the members of society that are the most influential. Included in her Sabiduras, a folder of her informal writings discovered upon her death, there is a letter addressed to her colleagues explaining the criteria that would be beneficial to the students of Venezuela.[citation needed] In it, she explains that only through experience can artists, and architects in particular, learn their medium: Images and theories about architecture would not further their artistic training. Her views were fueled by her belief that students were taught with too much emphasis on
rationality and were becoming "ignorant of imagination."[9]
Career
Background
Arriving in Venezuela during an economic boom, Gego was surrounded by artists enjoying a great deal of success.
Modernism was the artistic fad sweeping through Latin America and artists in Venezuela participated enthusiastically. Modernism was a political tool as well. Latin American governments were trying to catch up to the advancements of the United States during the post―World War II era, and Venezuela[who?] thought by encouraging the modern art movement, which incorporated ideas of the industry, science, and architecture, the country would be seen as progressive.[11]
Gego made her first sculpture in 1957. She was aware of the modern movement when she came to Caracas, but she did not want to simply co-opt the ideas of
Kinetic Art,
Constructivism or
Geometric Abstraction. Instead, Gego wanted to create a style of her own because she was able to use so many aspects of her life in her art—for example, her German heritage. In the end, she saw that these new projects labeled desarrollista (developmentalist movement) were pleasing the elite and members of government, but she wanted an art that would relate to the local community of Venezuela.[11]
Line
From Kinetic Art, Gego incorporated motion as well as the importance of experimentation and the spectator. One of her earliest works, Esfera (Sphere) (1959), consists of welded brass and painted steel of different widths that are placed at different angles to one another in order to create overlapping lines and fields. When the viewer walks around the sphere, the visual relationship between the lines changes, creating a sense of motion. Esfera echoes the work done by famous Kinetic artists like
Carlos Cruz-Diez and
Jesus Rafael Soto. It was not until the mid-1960s that Gego departed from the basic concept of
Kinetic Art in response to her developing ideas about lines. For her, a line inhabited its own space, and as such, it was not a component in a larger work but instead it was a work in itself. Therefore, in her artworks, she did not use line to represent an image; line was the image.[12]
The strength or purpose of a line was enhanced by Gego's use of different materials, like steel, wire, lead, nylon and various metals. In addition to relating to her interest in architecture, these materials also contradicted the new modernist movement in Latin America. Gego not only used these materials to create lines in her massive sculptures but also in her series entitled Dibujos Sin Papel (Drawings without Paper). These small works were created from scraps of metal that were bent and weaved together in order to evoke movement, experimentation, and spontaneity.[11]
While in
Los Angeles in the late 1960s, Gego composed a series of
lithographs that were mostly untitled except for a ten-page book entitled, Lines in 1966. This book was produced in gray and red. Variations in the thickness, length, and direction of the lines demonstrate the fundamental instability of lines. By experimenting with line in a different medium, Gego emphasized that the notion of a "line" retains its strength and independence regardless of its specific location or form.[citation needed]
Space
Gego's idea of a series of artworks that would be titled "Drawings Without Paper" reflected on her view of space. She considered space as its own form; as if her artwork was occupying the artwork of the room itself. Since her work is made from nets and grid-like materials, negative space is everywhere, creating an appreciation of both the negative as well as the positive space. But it is the shadows created by her works that reveal the integral connection between the sculpture and the room it occupies. In Gego's work, she was thus allowed to play with the idea of the stable and unstable elements of art:[12] The stable elements of art is the sculpture itself, while the unstable elements consist of the constantly changing shadows and the slight movement in her design due to the fragility of her materials. In fact, the way Gego's sculptures exist in space changes every time it was installed because she had the power to recreate the image as she wanted.
Tamarind Lithography Workshop
On the invitation of
June Wayne, Gego briefly visited Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles (now
Tamarind Institute) in 1963 and returned as an artist-fellow from November to December 1966, during which time she created thirty-one lithographs, including two books of them.[13]
Gego explained her interest in using non-traditional formats in her printmaking in a speech at Tamarind in 1966: "I think that series of sheets with a coherent meaning must be gathered in a way that they can be easily enjoyed so I make books."[14]
As in her three-dimensional installations, Gego used printmaking as a mode of linear experimentation. She used line, and its infinite variations, to explore negative space, or what she called, the "nothing between the lines." At a reception honoring her at Tamarind in 1966 she explained, "I discovered that sometimes the in-between lines is as important as the lines by [themselves]."[14]
Reticulárea
Her series of Reticuláreas is undoubtedly her most popular and most talked about group of artworks. Her first series was created in 1969. Pieces of aluminum and steel were joined together to create an interweaving of nets and webs that fills the entire room when exhibited. Her use of repetition and layering in the massive structure causes the piece to seem endless. Since her death, the permanent collection of Reticuláreas is in the
Galería de Arte Nacional in Caracas, Venezuela.[11]
Personal life
In 1940 Gego met Venezuelan urban planner Ernst Gunz at the architectural firm where she worked with other architects to design the Los Caobos housing estate for
Luis Roche.[3] They married in October 1940 and opened a furniture studio called ‘Gunz’, where Gego designed lamps and wooden furniture. Together the couple had Tomás (b. 1942) and Barbara (b. 1944).[3] Gego closed Gunz in 1944 in order to spend more time with her children. By 1948 she returned to designing private homes, nightclubs, and restaurants.
In 1951 she separated from Gunz, and in 1952 met artist and graphic designer
Gerd Leufert.[3] Gego and Leufert remained partnered for the rest of her life.[3] The romantic partnership coincides with the development of her artistic career: She begins exhibiting her watercolors, collages, and monotypes in 1954 and is experimenting with creating three-dimensional objects by 1956.[15]
Death and legacy
Gego died on 17 September 1994 in
Caracas,
Venezuela.[16] That same year, her family founded the Fundación Gego to preserve her artistic legacy; it organizes posthumous exhibitions of her artwork and promotes awareness of Gego's significance to the art world.[17] The Fundación Gego gave the permission to publish Gego's personal writings and testimonies in 2005.[18] These writings, now published, may influence other artists in her innovative and experimental mode of sculpture.[19]
Selected exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
1958 - Gego: Sculptures and Gouaches, Liberia Cruz del Sur, Caracas, 9–24 May
1964 - Lines and interlines: Engravings and Drawings by Gego,
Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, 2–16 February
1967: Recent Latin American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
1968: New Dimension in Lithography. An Exhibition Recently Selected from the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Fisher and Quinn Galleries, Southern California University
1969: El arte cinético y sus orígenes, Ateneo de Caracas, Caracas
1969/1970: Latin America. New Paintings and Sculpture. Juan Downey, Agustín Fernández, Gego, Gabriel Morera, Center for Inter-AmericanRelations Art Gallery, New York
1971: Tamarind. A Renaissance of Lithography. A Loan Exhibition from the Tamarind Lithography, International Foundation, California
1975: Relaciones y contrastes en la pintura venzolana, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Gego, Otero y Negret, Galería Adler Castillo, Caracas
1976: Las artes plásticas en Venezuela, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas
1978: Pequeña historia del dibujo en Venezuela, Estudio Actual, Caracas
1982: Spielraum – Raumspiele,
Alte Oper, Frankfurt am Main
1986: Caracas urbana, Museo de Arte La Rinconada, Caracas
1988–1990: The Latin Spirit. Art and Artists in the United States 1920–1970, The Bronx Museum of Art, New York
1992: Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century, Plaza de Armas, Sevilla
1996/1997: Inside the Visible. An Elliptical Traverse of 20th Century Art (in, of, and from the Feminine), The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
1997–1999: Re-Aligning Vision. Alternative Currents in South American Drawing, The Neighborhood Museum, New York
2013: "Zero"
Museu Oscar Niemeyer (in collaboration with D.O.P. Foundation and The Goethe Institut), Curitiba, Brazil.[23]
2013/2014: ZeroIberê Camargo Foundation (in collaboration with D.O.P. Collection and The Goethe Institut), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.[23]
2014: ZeroPinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (in collaboration with D.O.P. Foundation, The Goethe Institut, Prohelvetia & Alliance), São Paulo, Brazil.[23]
2016: Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947–2016, Hauser, Wirth & Schimmel, Los Angeles
^based on what Gego told me during a visit to Caracas in 1984 and my knowledge of Goldschmidt family history; a grand nephew, my maternal grandmother was a sister of Gego. User:"Stan Osborne"
^my knowledge of Goldschmidt family history. User:"Stan Osborne"
^
abGego, Sabiduras and Other Texts by Gego, ed. Maria E. Huizi (Caracas: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1995);
ISBN978-0-300-11163-7
^
abcdLygia Clark, Gego, Mathias Goeritz, Helio Oiticica, Mira Schendel, The Experimental Exercise of Freedom, ed. Susan Martin (Germany: Cantz, 1999);
ISBN978-0-914357-64-3
^Huizi, Maria Elena; Manrique Cabrera, Josefina (2005). Sabiduras and other texts : writings by Gego. Houston: International Center for the Arts of the Americas and Fundación Gego.
ISBN0300111630.
^Latin American and Caribbean Art: MOMA at El Museo, ed. Fatima Becht (Madrid: Turner, 2004);
ISBN978-0-87070-460-4.
^
abc"ZERO" - exhibition catalog of the most important travelling exhibition in America of Zero Group, edited by Heike van der Valentyn, with essays by Otto, Piene, Paulo Venencio Filho, Heinz-Norbert Jocks, Heike van den Valentyn, published by Museu Oscar Niemayer, Iberê Camargo Foundation & Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and printed in São Paulo, Brazil, 2013,
ISBN978-85-60638-37-6
Gego – An Artist Described by an Artist, the artist Nathalie David's narrative around creating Gego, a documentary on the painter Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt.