In 1974, the Venezuelan painter and sculptor Alejando Otero (1921–1990) presented his exhibition Tablones at the Galería Conkright in Caracas. The project of the same title, represented a return to geometric painting and two-dimensional media. In recent years (starting in 1967), Otero had executed massive sculptures, using an unprecedented integration between art and technology, or perhaps between art and landscape. The Tablones resumed the conceptual thread of the series Coloritmos (rendered in the 1950s), though with a greater presence assumed by color, which serves as an organizing element.
The relationship between such different periods is the main contribution of this text by the Venezuelan art critic Roberto Guevara (1932–1998). In his opinion, the consideration of successive events and explorations becomes the ground where the emotions can be found. Throughout his life as an art critic, Guevara placed the assessment of all those creative contributions ahead of any ideal; therefore, he often insisted on the coherence of a body of work over the life of a given artist. In this text, he goes beyond establishing links between the series with the most obvious commonalities (Tablones and Coloritmos). What he finds are solutions of continuity among works that others might deem to represent ruptures (in Otero’s case, sculpture in urban spaces). In discussing Otero’s essential concerns, the writer highlights that of “space as an active, workable dimension.” It is there where the real experience of the component of space and the kinetic leads to the development of another language, here woven by the dialogue that takes place between color and other compositional resources.