We went to the AIC (Art Institute of Chicago) the other day and saw a nice exhibit called “Abstraction at Midcentury” where I was quite taken by this pen-and-ink drawing by the German-Venezuelan artist Gego (Gertrude Goldschmidt) from 1968. Due to her Jewish ancestry, she was forced to leave Germany in 1935 during the oppressive rise of the Nazis. She taught architecture in Caracas and is evidently best known for her “kinetic sculptures” from the 1960’s and 70’s. The use of line and space in this instance certainly creates a sense of motion and turbulance. For effect, and to provide more detail, I simply duplicated the photo and cropped it closer and closer (with my seven year old iPhone).
It’s like a 100-string piano gone haywire. Or the effect of a bird strike on a jet aircraft. Or that fucking chaos agent, Donald Trump (spits). What do you see when reading between the lines?
I would have loved to watch her drawing it!
As Marcel Duchamp was fond of saying in his interviews, “I found that interesting.”
I used Chat-GPT to create the impression of a Bruce Nauman style neon work.
And here’s a nod to Magritte!
Or else a hint of Ed Ruscha.
Great Exudations 