The Venezuelan critic Roberto Guevara (1932–1998) was the first to understand the importance of Reticulárea (1969), the work by the German-born Venezuelan visual artist Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994); Guevara was one of the first to write a critical review of the work, as documented in this article. Guevara considers where the work belongs within the context of Venezuelan visual art. He also comments on how this work will affect Gego’s research and career. In this brief but essential article, Guevara goes even deeper to touch on some of the critical comments on Reticulárea that would be widely and profusely discussed in later reviews. The viewer’s role in appreciating the work, the fluctuating parts of the piece, and the interaction between drawing and three-dimensional space were just some of the things mentioned by Guevara, which subsequently became the subject of thorough scrutiny in Venezuela and overseas. Guevara gained his insights as a material and privileged witness to the installation of the work at the Museo de Bellas Artes. He was also instrumental in naming it. The idea of an “area of little nets” suggested the name Reticulárea. (See Gego’s text, “Aire” [Air], 1969).
This document is among the texts chosen for the bilingual book Desenredando la red. La Reticulárea de Gego. Una antología de respuestas críticas / Untangling the Web: Gego’s Reticulárea. An Anthology of Critical Response, María Elena Huizi and Ester Crespin (organizers)—to be published by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Fundación Gego, Caracas.