This document is excerpted from the transcript of conversations between the German-born Venezuelan artist Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994) and the Venezuelan filmmaker José Antonio Pantin. These conversations, filmed in 1981, were arranged as part of a project sponsored by the Galería de Arte Nacional [National Art Gallery] (GAN) in Caracas that set out to document the careers of the country’s most notable visual artists. Though the project was never completed, the transcripts of a questionnaire and two interviews were filed away with Gego’s papers that are now archived at the Fundación Gego (Caracas), where they are periodically consulted by researchers and specialists. Portions of the audio and video recordings of these sessions were presented at the exhibition Gego, 1955–1990 at the Museo de Bellas Artes [Museum of Fine Arts] in 2001. Pantin subsequently directed a documentary, 10 minutos con Gego [10 Minutes with Gego].
It should be noted that the interviewer admits to approaching Gego as a “normal, ordinary” individual, as a lay person, which explains why the concepts explored in this text are expressed and explained in simple terms. A review of Gego’s artistic and teaching career—her teaching at the Instituto de Diseño [Design Institute] Fundación Neumann–INCE, or the production of Cinco Pantallas [Five Screens] (1968–71) at the IVIC (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas) [Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research]—reveal certain interests and concerns that are reflected in her work. And that in turn expands on Gego’s written answers to the questionnaire that Pantin had proposed at an earlier date (Cf. Gego: “Nueve respuestas a nueve preguntas de José Antonio Pantin, abril 1981” [Nine Answers to Nine Questions from José Antonio Pantin, April 1981]).
The interview moves spontaneously from one subject to another with no script and no particular agenda guiding the conversation. Nonetheless, the text addresses most of the elements involved in Gego’s three-dimensional works: the origin of her work as an intuitive process, with no advance sketching; the difference between these works and her architectural installations which by definition require advance planning; the rejection of the term “sculpture,” which is discussed in other documents by Gego (Cf. Gego: “Escultura” [Sculpture], s/f; “Nueve respuestas a nueve preguntas de José Antonio Pantin, abril de 1981” [Nine Answers to Nine Questions from Antonio Pantin, April 1981]); her commitment to the search for transparency over and above any other aspect of three-dimensional works; and the satisfaction derived from the work as the ultimate goal of art.
This document was reprinted in: María Elena Huizi and Josefina Manrique (organizers), Sabiduras y otros textos de Gego / Sabiduras and Other Texts by Gego (Houston: International Center for the Arts of the Americas, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Fundación Gego, 2005), under the title “A veces es una ventaja” [Sometimes It’s an Advantage] which, according to the text, was taken from the artist’s first sentence.
