Unveiling Gego: Exploring the Artistic Journey of a German-Venezuelan Visionary

Gego, also known as Gertrud Goldschmidt, was born in 1912 in Hamburg and passed away in 1994 in Caracas. Initially trained as an architect and engineer at the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart, which is now known as Universität Stuttgart, she escaped Nazi persecution in 1939 and immigrated to Venezuela.

There, she settled permanently and fully embraced her artistic career in the 1950s, which lasted for over four decades. Gego's artistic exploration focused on the relationship between line, space, and volume, encompassing various mediums in both two- and three-dimensional works. Her investigations extended to fields such as architecture, design, and teaching, complementing her artistic pursuits.

Gego: The Lines of a Life - Trailer, Courtesy of The Guggenheim Museum and Foundation

The current exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum marks the first major retrospective of Gego's work in the United States since 2005. It provides a comprehensive view of the influential German-Venezuelan artist and her unique approach to abstract art. Spanning five ramps of the museum's rotunda, the exhibition showcases nearly 200 works from the early 1950s to the early 1990s, including sculptures, drawings, prints, textiles, and artist's books. It also incorporates photographic images of installations and public works, as well as sketches, publications, and letters.

Installation view, Gego: Measuring Infinity, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, March 31–September 10, 2023.

Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

Although Gego is one of the most significant artists from Latin America in the latter half of the twentieth century, her work remains relatively unknown in the United States. "Gego: Measuring Infinity" delves into the formal and conceptual contributions she made through her organic forms, linear structures, and systematic exploration of space. The exhibition situates Gego's practice within the artistic contexts of Latin America that thrived throughout her long career, considering her connections with and deviations from prominent transnational art movements like geometric abstraction and Kinetic art.

Gego: Measuring Infinity, Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Through her extensive investigations into structural systems, Gego presented radical ideas, addressing transparency, tension, fragility, spatial relations, and the optical effects of motion in her unique body of work. Her artistic trajectory defied categorization, and this long overdue retrospective expands on the Guggenheim Museum's tradition of presenting groundbreaking solo exhibitions of modern and contemporary art within a global context, highlighting non-objective art.