This document is a handwritten letter in German to Gego from the German photographer Peter Hönig, dated December 17, 1982, which concerns the photographs of the Reticulárea (1982) that Gego installed in a room at the Alte Oper building in Frankfurt that year. Hönig reports that having made his selection, the photographs are finally ready, and he adds that none of them show her installation on its own, with no people in it: “It seems to be impossible to separate your installation from its visitor/viewer, the human being.” The mesh envelops visitors—inciting them to play, to meditate, to act—unless they escape. In any case, it transforms them. Hönig mentions a few technical difficulties that had arisen, such as the closed curtains that blocked the light and created adverse conditions for photography. Hönig also refers to the type of paper and discusses prices and copyright.  

This handwritten letter German to the German-born Venezuelan artist Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994), from Peter Hönig dated December 17, 1982, concerns the photographs of the Reticulárea (1982) that Gego installed in Frankfurt that year. Gego went to Germany to exhibit her magnum opus at the Spielraum-Raumspiele [Playground / Playful Space] at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt. On her return, Gego corresponded with the architect Christian Thiel; one of the letters in this exchange is of documentary value because it mentions the essay “Rhizome” written by the French philosophers Guilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Thiel asked Hönig to write to Gego and send her the photographs. 

Thirty-eight modern artists took part in the German exhibition mentioned above. Other than Gego, and the North American composer, poet, and essayist John Cage, the list of participants included Venezuelan Kinetic artist Jesús Rafael Soto; Italian Conceptualist Piero Manzoni; Swedish-American Claes Oldenburg, who is one of the most outstanding figures in the Pop Art movement; Japanese photographer and installation artist Kazuo Katase; Swiss painter Alfonso Hüppi; sculptor and Kinetic artist Adolf Luther; the sculptor and objectual artist Christiane Möbius; and the painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer (who at one time worked with the Bauhaus) Oskar Schlemmer, among many others. 

Among the various documents related to this exhibition, Hönig’s letter is important because it includes the photographer’s thoughts on the difference—as can be seen in his photographs—between the Reticulárea with and without people. Hönig does not think that the room in which Reticulárea is installed can be separated from its visitor/observer—the human being.