
GEGO (Gertrude Luise Goldschmidt) (1912-1994, Germany - Venezuela)
“Art is firmly rooted in spiritual values. The creator is involved in a continuous process of discovery—not of himself, but of the roots of the universe which he has been able to discover within himself.”
As a young woman, Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt) worked as a draftsman in several architecture firms, painting workshops, and carpentry shops in her native Germany while completing a degree in architecture from the University of Stuttgart in 1938. To escape the increasing anti-Semitism in her home country, she emigrated to Venezuela in 1939, where she worked as a freelance architect and industrial designer until the mid-1940s. In 1953, she moved to the coastal town of Tarma and began her artistic work, producing drawings, watercolors, monotypes and xylographs; the majority of these early works were figurative and expressionist. She returned to Caracas in 1956, and there, using pure abstraction as her starting point, she began to address problems of sculptural space in her work; in 1957, along with artists Carlos Cruz-Diez, Alejandro Otero, and Jesús-Rafael Soto, Gego participated in the exhibition Arte abstracto en Venezuela. By 1959, the Museum of Modern Art in New York had begun to acquire her work; she moved to New York in 1960 and remained in the United States until 1967.
Gego taught at the school of architecture of the Universidad Central de Venezuela and at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Cristóbal Rojas. Her first individual show was held at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas in 1961; in 1962 she installed a sculpture at the headquarters of the Banco Industrial de Venezuela. She helped found the Instituto de Diseño Neumann in Caracas where she taught from 1964 to 1977. In 1969, with Gerd Leufert, she completed murals for the headquarters of the Instituto Nacional de Cooperación Educativa (INCE). From the 1970s to the 1980s she completed important, architecturally integrated sculpture for public buildings, residences, and shopping malls. In 1972, for example, she constructed Cuerdas (Cords), a sculpture-installation consisting of suspended nylon and stainless steel strips, for the Parque Central architectonic complex in Caracas.
Gego eventually began to use random procedures and “poor” materials such as industrial scraps and metals. Her series of suspended sculptures Dibujos sin papel (Drawings without Paper) and her series Bichos (Creatures) also date from the 1980s, as does her Reticulárea ambiental. Her last, extremely significant work was Tejeduras (Weavings), in which small fields of orthogonal lines were interwoven with strips of paper.
2021
2020
2019
2017 | Gego: a la linha emancipada, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona [MACBA], Barcelona, Spain; Tate Modern, London, England Gego: a la linha emancipada, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico Gego, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY Gego: a la linha emancipada, Museu de Arte de São Paulo [MASP], São Paulo, Brazil Between the lines: Gego as Printmaker, Amon Carter museum, Fort Worth, TX, USA |
2016 | Gego: Autobiography of a Line, Dominique Levy Gallery. London, England |
2015 | Gego: Autobiography of a Line, Dominique Levy Gallery, New York, NY, USA |
2014 | Gego: La poetique de la Ligne, Colección Mercantil, La Maison de la Amerique Latine, Paris, France |
| Gego: Line as Object, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany |
| Gego: Line as Object, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK |
2013 | Gego: El trazo transparente, Museo de la Estampa y el Diseño Carlos Cruz-Diez, Caracas, Venezuela |
| Gego: Tejeduras, Bichitos y Libros, Periférico de Caracas / Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas, Venezuela; Centro de Arte Los Galpones, Caracas, Venezuela |
| Gego: Line as Object, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg |
2012 | Gego: Origin and Encounter, Mastering the Space, The Americas Society, New York, NY, USA |
| Gego: Construcciones Tangents, Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela |
| Gego, Obra Abierta. Testimonios y Vigencia, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Venezuela |
| Gego: Procedencia y Encuentro, Sala Mendoza, Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas, Venezuela |
2008 | Gego: Estructuras diluídas, Museo de Barquisimeto, Barquisimeto, Venezuela |
| Gego: Prints & Drawings 1963-1991, Federico Sève Gallery, New York, NY, USA |
2006 | Gego arquitecto, Trasnocho Arte Contacto, Sala TAC, Caracas, Venezuela; Centro de Arte de Maracaibo Lía Bermúdez, Maracaibo, Venezuela; Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela; Galería Universitaria Braulio Salazar, UCV, Caracas, Venezuela |
| Gego: Defying Structures, Museu de Arte Contemporánea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain |
2005 | Gego: Between Transparency and the Invisible, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA; Colección Costantini, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, Colombia; The Drawing Center, New York, NY, USA |
2004 | Gego: Anudamientos, Sala Mendoza, Caracas, Venezuela |
2003 | Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt), Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA |
2002 | Gego: Works on Paper 1962-1991, Latin Collector Art Center, New York, NY, USA |
| Questioning the Line: Gego, A Selection, 1955-1990, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Monterrey, Mexico; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico |
2000 | Gego 1955-1990, Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, Venezuela |
1996 | Gego, Drawings, Engravings, Weavings, Centro Cultural Consolidado, Caracas, Venezuela |
1994 | Gego, A Look at Her Work, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Venezuela |
1990 | Weavings, Galería Sotavento, Caracas, Venezuela |
1988 | Gego: Recent Works, Galería Sotavento, Caracas, Venezuela |
1985 | 5/85 Drawing Without Paper, Museo de Barquisimeto, Barquisimeto, Venezuela |
1984 | Drawing Without Paper, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela |
1982 | Acuarelas de Gego, Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela |
1981 | Environmental, Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela (permanent installation) |
1979 | Variaciones sobre reticuláreas – poema de Alfredo Silva Estrada en homenaje a Gego, Sala Cadafe, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela |
1977 | Gego, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Venezuela |
1975 | Gego: Drawings for Projects, Instituto de Diseño, Fundación Neumann – INCE, Caracas, Venezuela |
1973 | Recent Drawings, Galería Conkright, Caracas, Venezuela |
1972 | Structures (Double Curves), Galería Conkright, Caracas, Venezuela |
1971 | Gego: Sculpture and Drawing, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY, USA |
| Gego: Sculptures 1971, Galería Conkright, Caracas, Venezuela |
1970 | Recent Works, Galería Conkright, Caracas, Venezuela |
| Gego Drawings, The Graphics Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA |
1969 | Reticulárea (ambientación), Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela |
1968 | On paper: Lithographs by Gego, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela |
| Drawings by Gego, Galería Conkright, Caracas, Venezuela |
| Lithographs by Gego, Galería UD, Bogotá, Colombia |
1967 | Gego: Sculptures, 1957-1967, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia; Galería Conkright, Caracas, Venezuela |
1964 | The Never Projected, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela |
| Lines and Inter-lines: Engravings and Drawings by Gego, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela |
1961 | Recent Drawings by Gego, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela |
1958 | Gego: Sculptures and Gouaches, Libreria Cruz del Sur, Caracas, Venezuela |
El Rancho High School, Pico Rivera, CA, USA
Grunwald Art Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, USA
CIFO - Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
Iowa State University (Film Department), Iowa City, IA, USA
Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL, USA
University of New México Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York City, NY, USA
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY, USA
New York Public Library, New York, NY, USA
Pratt Graphic Art Center, New York, NY, USA
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA
Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia
Museo Rayo - Museo de dibujo y grabado latinoamericano, Roldanillo, Colombia
Alte Oper, Frankfurt, Germany
Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain
Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zürich, Switzerland
Tate Modern Collection. London, UK
AT&T Art Collection, New Jersey, USA
Colección Banco Mercantil, Caracas, Venezuela
Facultad de Arquitectura Urbanismo, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuela
Fundación Banco Mercantil, Caracas, Venezuela
Fundación de Museos Nacionales, Caracas, Venezuela
Fundación Polar, Caracas, Venezuela
Galeria de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Caracas, Venezuela
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Francisco Narváez, Nueva Esparta, Venezuela
Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto, Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela
Museo de Barquisimeto, Barquisimeto, Venezuela
Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela
Taller de Artistas Gráficos Asociados (TAGA), Caracas, Venezuela
Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas (IVIC), Mérida, Venezuela