Axel Stein, the cultural agent, interviews Miguel von Dangel for an article in the catalogue for the exhibition Three Venezuelans in Two Dimensions. Miguel von Dangel. Ernesto León. Carlos Zerpa (New York: Americas Society Art Gallery, 1988). Von Dangel explains that his relationship with nature presents him with an enviable chance to face reality and search for the truth. After suffering a religious crisis, nature became an alternate reality for von Dangel, prompting him to say that in Venezuela, until the 1970s, artists weren’t expected to think. He and others struggled for years to convince people that painting was a way of thinking. He says that his work El retorno de la cuarta nave gave him a chance to think about the Old World from a New World perspective.   

The Venezuelan curator, critic, and cultural agent Axel Stein interviews the German-born Venezuelan visual artist Miguel von Dangel (b. 1946) for an article in the catalogue for Three Venezuelans in Two Dimensions. Miguel von Dangel. Ernesto León. Carlos Zerpa,the exhibition at the Americas Society Art Gallery from January through April 1988.

Despite the inconsistency of the interview—the answers do not exactly or entirely match the questions—von Dangel mentions several core features of his work, such as religion and an understanding that nature and art are a way of thinking. He has produced strongly religious works that focus on the natural world. The conversation, therefore, gradually moves to nature, geography, and anthropology, while not overlooking “transcendence,” a topic von Dangel compares to the search for truth. In fact, his work is the result of a continuous discourse about his surroundings, and how they affect him, and that only history will tell, as he mentions a number of times during the interview.

For Axel Stein’s two other texts on the subject of Three Venezuelans in Two Dimensions. Miguel von Dangel. Ernesto León. Carlos Zerpa, the exhibition presented at Americas Society Art Gallery in New York from January through April 1988, see the interview with Ernesto León [doc. no. 1102364], and with Carlos Zerpa [doc. no. 1102380].

To read other critical articles about the artist Miguel von Dangel, see the article by Yasmín Monsalve “Mi obra ha tenido que luchar contra muchos prejuicios: un premio nacional visto con la luz de Petare” [doc. no. 1102125]; the articles by Elsa Flores “Miguel von Dangel: la respuesta latinoamericana (I)” [doc. no. 1155150], “Miguel von Dangel: la respuesta latinoamericana (II)” [doc. no. 1154906], and “Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no. 1056044]; the essay published in 1986  by Roberto Montero Castro “Transfiguraciones de Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no.1153996]; the essays by María Luz Cárdenas “La Batalla de San Romano de von Dangel (I)” [doc. no. 1154028], and “La Batalla de San Romano de von Dangel (II)” [doc. no. 1154092]; the essay published in 1996 by Ruth Auerbach “Hoy, el paisaje es aquí y ahora” [doc. no. 855314]; the essay published in 1997 by Julio Ortega “La iridiscencia del ojo de la materia o como leer un objeto artístico procesal” [doc. no. 1155251]; María Cecília Valera’s interview “Entrevista con Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no. 1154060]; María Josefa Pérez’s interview “Miguel von Dangel: no creo el cuento de que Reverón era loco” [doc. no. 1154012]; and finally, the article by Víctor Guédez “Lo barroco y lo simbólico en la obra de Miguel von Dangel” [doc. no. 1154124].