Alejandro Otero (El Manteco, Bolívar, March 7, 1921 —

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in th ...

, August 13, 1990) was a Venezuelan painter of Geometric abstraction, a sculptor, a writer and a cultural promoter. He was a founding member of the Los Disidentes group.

Early life

Alejandro Otero studied art at the ''Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Artes Aplicadas de Caracas'' from 1939 to 1945. In 1940 he won a prize in the ''First Venezuelan Official Art Salon''.Melanía Monteverde-Pensó From "Grove Art Online" http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4445 After his studies, Otero traveled to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

where he focused his work on a revision of

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

in 1945, living in Paris until 1952. In 1945 he also went to Washington, D.C., where he exhibited figurative works at the ''Pan American Union''. He was married to Venezuelan artist Mercedes Pardo in London, 1951. Descendants: Mercedes Otero Pardo, Carolina Otero Pardo, Alejandro Otero Pardo and Gil Otero Pardo

Career

He produced some of his most important

pictorial An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...

series in Paris, including ''Las Cafeteras'' (''The Coffee Pots''), painted between 1946 and 1948, which marks his transition from representation to

abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abst ...

. Shown at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas in 1949, these paintings caused a critical uproar in culturally conservative Venezuela, which ultimately, helped trigger the emergence of modernist abstraction in Venezuela. This works became well known in 1948 at an exhibition in Washington, D.C. since they served as a transition for Otero to overcome

Realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: * Classical Realism *Literary realism, a mov ...

and start a new era for Venezuelan painting. In 1950, Otero traveled in the

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, seeking out the work of

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...

, an artist who became pivotal for the development of Otero's new series of works, including ''Líneas de color sobre fondo blanco'' (''Colored Lines on a White Background'') of 1951 and ''Collages ortogonales'' (''Orthogonal Collages'') of 1951–52. These latter works, dynamic

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...

s that featured a tight weave of horizontal and vertical bands of multihued paper, show the artist experimenting with the spatial and optical effects of line and color. The idea of the

module Module, modular and modularity may refer to the concept of modularity. They may also refer to: Computing and engineering * Modular design, the engineering discipline of designing complex devices using separately designed sub-components * Modul ...

in Otero's practice first emerged in these works, in which he exhaustively explored a

dynamic Dynamics (from Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' "power") or dynamic may refer to: Physics and engineering * Dynamics (mechanics) ** Aerodynamics, the study of the motion of air ** Analytical dyn ...

conception of space and pictorial structure typical of

Op Art Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions. Op artworks are abstract, with many better-known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden image ...

and Kinetic Art. Drawn back to Caracas, he was invited to participate in the integration of the visual arts into the architectural program of the ''Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas'', a project directed and promoted by the architect

Carlos Raúl Villanueva Carlos Raúl Villanueva Astoul (May 30, 1900 – August 16, 1975) was a Venezuelan modernist architect. Villanueva went for the first time to Venezuela when he was 28 years old. He was involved in the development and modernization of Caracas, ...

, and considered the most advanced effort in

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

and

urbanism Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, which is the profession focusing on the physical design and ...

in the country. As part of a large group of Venezuelan and foreign artists (including

Hans Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born in Straßburg (now Str ...

Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and hi ...

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as " tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, p ...

Victor Vasarely Victor Vasarely (; born Győző Vásárhelyi, ; 9 April 1906 – 15 March 1997) was a Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the Op art movement. His work entitled ''Zebra'', created in 1937, is consid ...

Mateo Manaure Mateo Manaure (18 October 1926 – 19 March 2018) was a Venezuelan modern artist. In Venezuela he is considered a master of abstractionism, and is known for his works in the University City of Caracas and for creating the largest glass mural in ...

, Francisco Narváez, and

Jesús Rafael Soto Jesús Rafael Soto (June 5, 1923 – January 17, 2005) was a Venezuelan op and kinetic artist, a sculptor and a painter. His works can be found in the collections of the main museums of the world, including Tate (London), Museum Ludwig (Germany ...

) contributing to the project, Otero realized a series of large-scale public works, including

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...

stained glass window Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

s, and ''Policromías'' (''Polychromies''), facades in

glass Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

. Between 1955 and 1960, he developed the extraordinary series of seventy-five ''Colorhythms'', one of his major contributions to the field of painting. In 1955, Otero produced his first ''Colorhythm''. Painted with

Duco Duco was a trade name assigned to a product line of automotive lacquer developed by the DuPont Company in the 1920s. Under the Duco brand, DuPont introduced the first quick drying multi-color line of nitrocellulose lacquers made especially for ...

, a shiny industrial

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be c ...

, applied with

spray gun Spray painting is a painting technique in which a device sprays coating material (paint, ink, varnish, etc.) through the air onto a surface. The most common types employ compressed gas—usually air—to atomize and direct the paint particles. ...

s or rollers on wood or

Plexiglas Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...

, the ''Colorhythms'' are large-scale immersive compositional modules executed on rectangular supports. Structured by parallel, evenly spaced, dark vertical bands on white grounds, the paintings have color markings placed between the bands, which activate the entire structure of the plane. In these works, Otero succeeded in emphasizing

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...

and color over form, resulting in a suggestive spatial ambiguity typical of

. As a consequence of

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

intensity,

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a p ...

vibration Vibration is a mechanical phenomenon whereby oscillations occur about an equilibrium point. The word comes from Latin ''vibrationem'' ("shaking, brandishing"). The oscillations may be periodic, such as the motion of a pendulum—or random, su ...

, and rhythmic movement, the

picture plane In painting, photography, graphical perspective and descriptive geometry, a picture plane is an image plane located between the "eye point" (or ''oculus'') and the object being viewed and is usually coextensive to the material surface of the ...

seems to expand dynamically outwards. With the ''Coloryhthms'', Otero proposed an idea of particular importance: the notion of the plane as a spatial field of forces in constant expansion, functioning simultaneously as immersive painting, volume, and architecture. In 1958 Otero was awarded the ''National Prize for Painting'' in the ''Official Salon'', and in 1959 he represented Venezuela in the

São Paulo Art Biennial The São Paulo Art Biennial ( Portuguese: ''Bienal de São Paulo'') was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale (in existence since 1895), which serves as ...

, receiving an honourable mention. He is in the collection of The

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

(

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; ...

) in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In the 1960s he abandoned painting in order to work on a larger scale in his ''

civic Civic is something related to a city or municipality. It also can refer to multiple other things: General *Civics, the science of comparative government *Civic engagement, the connection one feels with their larger community *Civic center, a comm ...

sculptures'', such as ''

Delta Solar ''Delta Solar'' is a public artwork by Venezuelan sculptor Alejandro Otero located outside of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, United States. ''Delta Solar'' is meant to pay homage to modern technology and the Inca sun cult. ...

''. He also produced

s of ''objets trouvés'', as in ''Page Picture No. 1''.paper on wood, 1964; priv. col., 1966 Towards the end of his life he carried out many monumental public art commissions in many American cities. In 2012 the exhibition ''Resonant Space: The Colorhythms of Alejandro Otero'' organized by the (IAC), was presented at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil.

Gallery

Image:Outside the museum.jpg Image:Otero sculpture.jpg Image:Laguna de los espejos.jpg Image:Otero-Facultad Arquitectura-UCV.JPG Image:Otero-Facultad Ingenieria-UCV.JPG

Selected works

* , 1947 * , 1947 * , 1950 * , 1951 * , 1951 * , 1951 * , 1951 * , 1951 * , 1951 * , 1951 * , 1952 * , 1952 * , 1952 * , 1952 * , 1952 * , 1952 * , 1952 * , 1952 * , 1954 * , 1956 * , 1959 * , 1959 * , 1961 * , 1962 * , 1976

References

External links