Gego: The Architecture of an Artist

Gego: The Architecture of an Artist
February 19–July 10, 2022

With Gego: The Architecture of an Artist the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart has devoted its second monographic exhibition to the work of the artist Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, Hamburg, 1912–Caracas, 1994). After receiving a long-term loan of one hundred works by the Fundación Gego, Caracas, in 2017 the Kunstmuseum initiated a research project together with University of Stuttgart and the Wüstenrot Foundation with a particular focus on Gego’s architectural education in Stuttgart and her works on paper.

Gego is one of the most renowned artists of Latin America today. From 1932 to 1938 she studied architecture and engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart (Stuttgart Institute of Technology) before she was forced to emigrate to Venezuela in 1939 because of her Jewish ancestry. There, in the mid-1950s, she began working as an artist. Gego’s training always remained a point of reference for her artistic practice, which she continually expanded in various media—from technical sketches along with drawings, etchings, and prints to objects and extensive installations in museums or public spaces in Caracas. The exhibition emphasizes that in Gego’s work the boundaries between all creative disciplines are fluid and that the medium of drawing always remained an important means of communication.

The research project and the exhibition has been realized in close cooperation of the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (Dr. Ulrike Groos), the University of Stuttgart (Prof. Dr. Kerstin Thomas), and the Wüstenrot Foundation (Prof. Philip Kurz) and was conducted and curated by Stefanie Reisinger.

Gego: procedencia y encuentro
Conference: April 7–8, 2022

On the occasion of the exhibition Gego: The Architecture of an Artist, a two-day symposium will take place at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. Gego’s independent artistic position was formed in an intensive confrontation with architectural practices of her time. The meaning of “origin and encounter” (“procedencia y encuentro”) played a central role for the exile-artist. Together with international art historians, curators, and architectural theorists, we not only attempt to explore the significance of architecture in Gego's work, her education in Germany, and the impulses her new hometown Caracas brought into play. Moreover, we also aim to analyze Gego’s manifold body of work against the backdrop of prevailing discourses in art and architecture, the social political as well as the professional contexts in which the artist was embedded in during her life.

Participants: Mónica Amor (Maryland Institute College of Art), Noit Banai (Hong Kong Baptist University), Pablo León de la Barra (Guggenheim Museum, New York), Hannia Gómez (Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas), Hubert Klumpner (ETH Zürich), Sabine Mainberger (University of Bonn), Mari Carmen Ramírez (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), Stefanie Reisinger (University of Stuttgart), Kerstin Thomas (University of Stuttgart)

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