GEGO

Born Gertrud Goldschmidt in Hamburg, Germany, Gego studied engineering and architecture at the Technical School of Stuttgart (1938). In 1939, she fled Nazi Germany and immigrated to Caracas, Venezuela. A contemporary of Kinetic artists Jesús Rafael Soto and Alejandro Otero, she arrived at her art practice when she was 41. In 1965, her work featured in the landmark exhibition The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and in 1969 her Reticulárea debuted at the Museo de Bellas Artes Caracas. Her subsequent series, Chorros (1970–1971)—cascading clusters of linked metal rods—was presented in her first solo exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery (1971). In 1977, her series Dibujos sin papel (1976–1984) was shown at her first major museum retrospective at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Caracas. The works in her final series, Tejeduras (1988–1991), comprise found paper woven to recall textile crafts she learned in childhood.

Major traveling exhibitions and retrospectives dedicated to the artist have been organized by such institutions as Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas (2000); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2005); Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto (2006); Hamburger Kunsthalle (2013); Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2022); and a forthcoming solo survey at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2022), traveling from Museu de Arte de São Paulo and Museo Jumex, Mexico City. In 2005, Gego’s writings (Sabiduras) were translated and published for the first time. Her artwork belongs to the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas; Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Guggenheim Bilbao; and the Tate, London, among many others.

Courtesy Lévy Gorvy Dayan