Video: Symposium—Gego at One Hundred Years - Nuit Banai

Speaker:

• Nuit Banai, Professor, Visual and Critical Studies, Tufts University

Presentation:

• "Gego Against the Grain: A Triangulated Modernism, a Subject in Exile"

"Gego at One Hundred Years" brings together a select group of art historians, cultural critics, and curators to explore the historical relevance of Gego's art at the centenary of her birth. What is the relationship between Gego's early kinetic sculpture and the widely held belief in technological progress that in Venezuela was fueled by the oil and construction boom of 1950s and 60s? How did the context affect her decision to become a practicing artist? More broadly, what is the nature of the relationship between Gego's early training in architecture and engineering and the constructivist-based sculpture (e.g., the series of Reticuláreas) that she later went on to develop? And to what extent did her unique position as a European woman émigré of Jewish descent affect her artistic production in Venezuela? This symposium explores these and other issues in order to assess the historical importance of Gego's art as well as the degree to which it continues to resonate in the present.