After an epigraph taken from Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, María Luz Cárdenas interviews Venezuelan poet Alfredo Silva Estrada on the occasion of the publication of the book Variaciones sobre Reticuláreas [Variations on Reticuláreas] with poems by Silva Estrada and drawings by Gego; the book was designed by Gerd Leufert. They discuss the points of connection and divergence among poetry, criticism, and scientific knowledge. They refer to other instances when various disciplines have come together on a project, such as Saint-John Perse’s poem on Georges Braque’s The Birds, Silva Estrada’s own Una danza que se llama poema [A Dance Called Poem], and Duración Uno y Cuatro [Duration One and Four] (both dated 1975) that combines poetry with the corporeal language of dancer Sonia Sanoja. Silva Estrada firmly believes that the fusion of different arts is a form of New Humanism. Cárdenas and Silva Estrada also speak of earlier books by Silva Estrada, including Del Traspaso [Of Transfer] (1963), from which the title Lo nunca proyectado, [The Never Projected] emerged, another joint project with Gego. Silva Estrada confides that he feels great creative affinity with Gego, as well as a deep comprehension of her work; he also feels “drawn to her beautiful patience and ability to ennoble the most basic elements, as well as the wisdom [that enables her] to invent a technique that eschews both the facile and the grandiloquent, a technique that she invents anew for each occasion.”

The book Variaciones sobre Reticuláreas—which is reproduced in its entirety and analyzed thoroughly in this archive—was published in 1980; it received a great deal of attention from the mass media at that time. The projectconstituteda unique experience of artistic collaboration, one without precedent in Venezuela, insofar as it included a third creator (graphic designer Gerd Leufert). Furthermore, as Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994) explains to Venezuelan critic and museologist María Luz Cárdenas (born 1954) in an interview (included in this digital archive) conducted on the occasion of the publication of the book, “it seems more common for artists to contribute to poems as illustrators than for poets to be inspired by an artist’s work.” Gego and her companion Gerd Leufert were friends with Alfredo Silva Estrada (1933–2009) and his wife, the dancer Sonia Sanoja; the four artists shared interests, specifically involving the nature of space and the experiences it afforded; they collaborated on different projects. Years before this book was published, Sonia Sanoja presented Coreogego on the occasion of the Gego exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo of Caracas (1977). In that choreographic project—about which this digital archive contains some documents—Gego’s work and dance were brought together. “Conversación de María Luz Cárdenas con Alfredo Silva Estada” forms part of a series of documents that includes the extensive poem, Variaciones sobre Reticuláreas. Curiously, Cárdenas published her conversations with the artist and the poet separately. Literary scholars like Venezuelan Juan Liscano, who is also a poet, have indicated that “Silva Estrada worked with feelings of the most intimate nature,” establishing a relationship based on the combination of time and poetry to escape destruction. “He experiments with form but never excludes experience. He is a maker of verbal poetic spaces, articulated, and constructed in movement [...]”, Cf. Liscano, “Hoy, poesía venezolana,” América Latina 12, no. 24 (spring, 1984): 40.