Page 38 - World of Art Contemporary Art magazine: The 2023 Guggenheim issue

WORLD-CLASS ART

GEGO:
MEASURING INFINITY
Exhibitions: Gego. Measuring Infinity. Geaninne Gutiérrez-
Guimarães. Sponsored by Seguros Bilbao, soon to become
Occident. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

GEGO IS ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ARTISTS TO EMERGE
FROM THE LATIN AMERICAN SCENE DURING THE SECOND HALF
OF THE 20TH CENTURY, WHOSE CAREER TRACED A MARKEDLY
INDIVIDUAL PATH, WHICH DEFIED CATEGORIZATION. ORGANIZED
CHRONOLOGICALLY AND THEMATICALLY, THE EXHIBITION
EXAMINES THE ARTIST’S FORMAL AND CONCEPTUAL
CONTRIBUTIONS THROUGH HER ORGANIC FORMS, LINEAR
STRUCTURES, AND MODULAR ABSTRACTIONS. THROUGH
NEARLY 150 SCULPTURES, DRAWINGS, PRINTS, TEXTILES,
PUBLICATIONS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS, MEASURING INFINITY
SITUATES THE ARTIST’S PRACTICE IN THE ARTISTIC CONTEXTS Gego installing Reticulárea at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, 1969. Photo:
OF LATIN AMERICA AND CONSIDERS HER INTERSECTIONS WITH Juan Santana, © Fundación Gego
AND DEPARTURES FROM KEY ART MOVEMENTS, SUCH AS
GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION OR KINETIC ART.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Gego: Measuring
Infinity, a major retrospective offering a fully integrated
view of the work by German-Venezuelan artist Gertrud
Goldschmidt (b. 1912, Hamburg; d. 1994, Caracas), also
Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt) (1912-1994). Four Red Planes (Cuatro planos rojos), 1967 known as Gego, and her distinctive approach to the
Iron and paint 84 × 90 × 84 cm. Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. © Fundación
Gego. Photo: Courtesy Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros language of abstraction. Sponsored by Seguros Bilbao (soon
to become Occident) and arranged chronologically and
thematically, the exhibition examines the artist’s formal and
conceptual contributions through her organic forms, linear
structures, and modular abstractions.
Nearly 150 works from the early 1950s through the early
1990s are featured, including sculptures, drawings, prints,
textiles, and artist’s books, alongside photographic images
of installations and public artworks, sketches, publications,
and letters. Situating Gego’s practice in the artistic contexts
of Latin America that transpired over the course of her
lengthy career, the survey also considers her intersections
with - and departures from - key transnational art
movements such as Geometric Abstraction and Kinetic Art.
Gego was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1912 and graduated
with a degree in engineering and architecture from the
University of Stuttgart in 19381. With the advent of World War
II, she migrated to Venezuela, settling in Caracas in 19392.

36 WORLD of ART