“Reticulárea” is the word used to refer to what many scholars consider the foremost work by Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994). The term names an environment created with nets and metal mesh of varying thicknesses and sizes that hang from wall or ceiling. With this body of work, Gego inaugurated a new structural system in her art and effected a radical transformation in her aesthetic, one that probably took shape in earlier drawings. Though Gego herself says that the term “Reticulárea” was coined by Venezuelan critic Roberto Guevara (see: Gego, “Planteamiento de problemas e intereses perseguidos,” c. 1977), this document—which was found in the folder in which Gego kept all the materials related to the first installation of the work Reticulárea at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas in 1969—outlines a creative process in pursuit of a precise term. That process entailed a sort of game or poem in which each of the words and terms formulates, represents, evokes or brings to bear on the work different meanings; the work itself holds them all. It is likely that those with Gego while the work was being installed—including Guevara, who had been involved in its creation at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas—participated in the word play. He must have been the one who, in this sort of Surrealist “jeu du cadavre exquis…” ultimately came up with the right term. This document is reproduced in: Iris Peruga et al., Gego: Obra completa, 1955–1990 (Caracas: Fundación Cisneros, 2003), organized by María Elena Huizi and Josefina Manrique, 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 the Fundación Gego, 2005).
