Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt (1 August 1912 – 17 September 1994), known as Gego, was a modern German-Venezuelan
visual artist. Gego is perhaps best known for her geometric and
kinetic sculpture
Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or that depends on motion for its effects. Canvas paintings that extend the viewer's perspective of the artwork and incorporate multidimensional movement are ...
s made in the 1960s and 1970s, which she described as "drawings without paper".
Early life
Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt, who went by "Gego", was born on 1 August 1912 in
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
into a
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
ish family. She was the sixth of seven children of Eduard Martin Goldschmidt and Elizabeth Hanne Adeline Dehn.
["Gertrud Gego Goldschmidt"](_blank)
Jewish Women's Archive, Retrieved 31 October 2018. Although she was the niece of the medieval art historian
Adolf Goldschmidt
Adolph Goldschmidt (15 January 1863 – 5 January 1944) was a German Jews, Jewish German art historian. He taught at University of Berlin from 1892 to 1903, and University of Halle from 1904 to 1912.
Biography
He was born on 15 January 1863 in ...
, who taught at the University of Berlin, she decided to attend the
Technische Hochschule of Stuttgart in 1932, where she was taught by the well-known German architect
Paul Bonatz. In 1938, she earned a diploma in both architecture and engineering.
[Amor, Monica. ''Another Geometry: Gego's Reticulárea, 1969-1982", October, Issue 113 (2005): 101-30, 25.'']
Because her family was Jewish, life became very difficult once the
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
gained power in 1933. Her German citizenship was nullified in 1935,
[Rottner, Nadja. ''Gego 1957-1988 Thinking the Line''. Hatje Cantz, Germany: 2006, pg. 59; ] and she was forced to leave the country. She found work in 1939 in Venezuela as an architect and gained Venezuelan citizenship in 1952. 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.
In 1987, Professor Frithjof Trapp of the
University of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public university, public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('':de:Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen, ...
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. 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.
[Gego, ''Sabiduras and Other Texts by Gego'', ed. Maria E. Huizi (Caracas: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1995); ]
Importance of education
After moving to
Caracas, Venezuela
Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (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 the northern p ...
, Gego taught at the College of Architecture and City Planning at the
Central University of Venezuela
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
between 1958 and 1967.
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.
In 1948, Venezuelan president
Rómulo Gallegos
Rómulo Ángel del Monte Carmelo Gallegos Freire (2 August 1884 – 5 April 1969) was a Venezuelan novelist and politician. In 1948, he became the first freely elected President of Venezuela, president in Venezuela's history. He was removed from ...
was overthrown by a
military coup. 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. 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
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...
and were becoming "ignorant of imagination."
Career
Background
Arriving in Venezuela during an economic boom, Gego was surrounded by artists enjoying a great deal of success.
Modernism
Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
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 thought by encouraging the modern art movement, which incorporated ideas of the industry, science, and architecture, the country would be seen as progressive.
[Lygia Clark, Gego, Mathias Goeritz, Helio Oiticica, Mira Schendel, ''The Experimental Exercise of Freedom'', ed. Susan Martin (Germany: Cantz, 1999); ]
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.
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.
[Gego, ''Questioning the Line: Gego in Context'', ed. Mari Carmen Ramirez (Houston: ]University of Texas Press
The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is the university press of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly and trade books in several areas, including Latin American studies, Caribbean, Caribbea ...
, 2003). .
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.
While in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
in the late 1960s, Gego composed a series of
lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
s 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.
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:
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.
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."
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
hemselves"
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.
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.
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).
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.
Gego and Leufert remained partnered for the rest of her life.
The romantic partnership coincides with the development of her artistic career: She began exhibiting her watercolors, collages, and monotypes in 1954 and by 1956 was experimenting with creating three-dimensional objects.
Death and legacy
Gego died on 17 September 1994 in
Caracas
Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (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 the northern p ...
,
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
.
["Gego"](_blank)
Lévy Gorvy Gallery, Retrieved 31 October 2018. 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. The Fundación Gego gave the permission to publish Gego's personal writings and testimonies in 2005. These writings, now published, may influence other artists in her innovative and experimental mode of sculpture.
[''Latin American and Caribbean Art: MOMA at El Museo'', ed. Fatima Becht (Madrid: Turner, 2004); .]
Gego's work is in 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 (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
.
Her work was included in the 2021 exhibition ''
Women in Abstraction'' at the
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
.
See also
*
National Prize of Plastic Arts of Venezuela
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
References
External links
Gego in the collection of The Museum of Modern ArtGego – An Artist Described by an Artist the artist Nathalie David's narrative around creating Gego, a documentary on the painter Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt.
*
*
GEGO Foundation website GEGO Artista website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gego
1912 births
1994 deaths
20th-century Venezuelan sculptors
German emigrants to Venezuela
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany
German sculptors
Jewish women sculptors
Jewish sculptors
Modern artists
Artists from Hamburg
Academic staff of the Central University of Venezuela
Venezuelan women artists
University of Stuttgart alumni
Venezuelan Jews
Venezuelan women engineers
Venezuelan engineers
Venezuelan women educators
20th-century women sculptors
20th-century Venezuelan engineers