GEGO

Best known for her net-like wire structures, Gego rejected stylistic categories and historicaltrajectories of influence, wedding the intuition of expressionism and the order of the constructivistgrid. Her approach to geometric abstraction is defined by her calligraphic hand as well as hertraining in architecture and engineering. Working between artistic disciplines, Gego challengedthe grid as an idealised form so often employed in modernised urban space. Indeterminacy wassomething she welcomed in the reception and production of her works. In 1981, she wrote: “What isstimulating is activity, the development of which is impossible to know beforehand.”

Spanning a period from 1961 through 1990, Lines in Space begins with works on paper that explorethe possibilities of line to disrupt or diffuse ordered composition. On view will be key examples of theartist’s sculptural series, such as Chorro (1979/1986). Initiated as a Chorro (Stream) work in 1979, thesculpture was reworked by the artist in 1986, attaining the net-like qualities of Reticulàrea, Gego’smost impactful series. The work is one of approximately 15 large-scale, stand-alone wire sculpturesby the celebrated artist.

The three-dimensional works in the exhibition have the effect of immaterial volumes, constructedby shadow as much as solid form. Across her work, Gego dissolved structural boundaries to activatemarginal and interstitial space. The latest works on view belong to the artist’s final series, _Tejeduras_(Weavings) (1988–91), which comprise found paper woven to recall the textile craft Gego learned inher childhood in Hamburg, Germany.

Lines in Space will coincide with a major retrospective of the artist’s work on view at Museo Jumexin Mexico City (October 2022–February 2023), which traveled from the Museu de Arte de SãoPaulo (2019–1920) and will continue on to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (March–September 2023), and the Guggenheim Bilbao (October 2023–February 2024). In 2023, Lines inSpace will be presented at LGDR in New York, offering a precise, in-depth view into Gego’s work,illuminating its logic of connectivity and possibility.