Like a meticulous and careful spider, the importance of manual work in Gego's pieces unfolds before our eyes and conveys ideas of deep meaning, such as the value of patience, contemplation, the observation of life in its many facets, the relationship with others, the cooperation. The simple approach of using metal segments as connectors between nodes and weaving huge interconnected networks, occupying a physical space, encloses a substantial visual and discourse load.

Reticulárea, 1969. Fine Arte Museum, Caracas. Photo Paolo Gasparini, Fundación Gego Archive

This German artist, based in Venezuela since she left her home country during World War II, began to develop her own language in the 1960s. In her work, it is evident the great influence of her training as an engineer, with a mention in architecture, studies that she concluded in 1938 at the University of Stuttgart. As Gertrud Goldschmidt, her real name, she developed her career in the world of design and architecture. She created a company dedicated to the manufacture of furniture and lamps and got involved in urban design projects with residential houses in Los Chorros, Quintas El Urape and Tulipán.

But since the late 50s, Gertrud ceases to be Gertrud and begins to be Gego. The take-off of her artistic career coincides with a turn in her personal life when, after having divorced her first husband in 1952, she meets her life partner for the rest of her days: Gerd Leufert. In the early years, her work becomes more landscape, expressionist and figurative; but soon she begins to explore concepts that interest her especially, such as the three-dimensional configuration of the works, at which time she establishes a relationship of friendship and mutual exchange with sculptors such as Alejandro Otero and Jesús Soto. In this period, called "Parallel Lines", the influence of geometric trends and kinetic art becomes palpable in many of her works, as with the piece "Sphere", which produces a surprising sensation of movement when one goes around it.

It was always crucial for Gego to include a spatial aspect in her work. Some of her most famous works belong to the well-known period of "Reticle-areas, Trunks and Spheres", which began in 1969. That's when the artist abandons rigid materials and begins to weave her nets in a flexible way using adaptable materials, and embraces new formats, always starting from pure forms, but open to the modification of patterns.

The undoubted influence of this artist on the kinetic movement and three-dimensional geometric art is undeniable. This has led the director Montenegro & Lafont to create 17 micro-documentaries with testimonials from personalities who know and value her work to offer us a more intimate vision of the author, a project entitled “fg conversations”. After she died in 1994, her family created the Gego Foundation, which has collaborated intensely on this proposal.

Gego in her studio, Caracas, ca. 1982, Fundación Gego Archive

With several exhibitions to open at the São Paulo Museum of Art, the Jumex Museum in Mexico City, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona and the Guggenheim in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum organises a session to display the documentaries and open debate around the work of this artist, with the participation of Yayo Aznar (architect) and Guillermo Barrios (art historian), and presented by the curator and historian Federica Palomero. “Links in/about Gego”, Monday, October 14th, 2019 - 7:00 p.m. / Sabatini Building, Auditorium.

The circle as critical device and the marker as contemporary catalyst

POSCA, the Japanese brand of water-based paint markers, has established itself since the 1980s as a central instrument within contemporary artistic practices associated with urban art, illustration, graphic design, and interdisciplinary experimentation. Its opaque, highly pigmented, fast-drying formula—compatible with surfaces as diverse as paper, wood, metal, glass, and textiles—has enabled a technical expansion that extends beyond the traditional studio, engaging public space, objects, and installation practices alike.

In this context, POSCA operates as more than a working tool; it functions as a material infrastructure for contemporary creation. It is a technical device that enables immediacy of gesture without sacrificing chromatic density or formal precision. Its versatility has contributed to the democratization of languages historically associated with painting, fostering a more horizontal circulation between professional and amateur practices.

This expanded dimension of the medium finds a particularly compelling conceptual framework in The Rolling Collection, a traveling exhibition curated by ADDA Gallery. The project proposes a collective investigation of the circular format, understood not merely as a formal container but as a symbolic structure and a field of spatial tension.

Historically, the circle has operated as a figure of totality, continuity, and return. Within the framework of The Rolling Collection, the circular format shifts away from its classical symbolic charge toward an experimental dimension, becoming a support that challenges the hegemonic rectangular frontality of the Western pictorial tradition. The absence of angles demands a reconsideration of composition, balance, and directional flow.

Rather than functioning as a simple formal constraint, this condition generates a specific economy of visual decisions. The curved edge intensifies the relationship between center and periphery, dissolves internal hierarchies, and activates both centrifugal and centripetal dynamics. The resulting body of work interrogates the very processes through which images are constructed.

Following its 2025 tour through Barcelona, Ibiza, Paris, London, and Tokyo, a selection of the exhibition is presented at Art Madrid, reinforcing its international scope and its adaptability to diverse cultural contexts. The proposal for Art Madrid’26 brings together artists whose practices unfold at the intersection of urban art, contemporary illustration, and hybrid methodologies: Honet, Yu Maeda, Nicolas Villamizar, Fafi, Yoshi, and Cachetejack.

While their visual languages vary—ranging from graphic and narrative approaches to chromatic explorations charged with gestural intensity—the curatorial framework establishes a shared axis: a free, experimental, and distinctly color-driven attitude. In this sense, color functions as a conceptual structure that articulates the works while simultaneously connecting them to the specific materiality of POSCA.

The marker’s inherent chromatic vibrancy engages in dialogue with the formal assertiveness of the circle, generating surfaces in which saturation and contrast take center stage. The tool thus becomes embedded within the exhibition discourse, operating as a coherent extension of the participating artists’ aesthetic vocabularies.

One of the project’s most significant dimensions is the active incorporation of the public. Within the exhibition space—activated by POSCA during Art Madrid’26—visitors will be invited to intervene on circular supports installed on the wall using POSCA markers, thereby symbolically integrating themselves into The Rolling Collection during its presentation in Madrid.

This strategy introduces a relational dimension that destabilizes the notion of the closed artwork. Authorship becomes decentralized, and the exhibition space transforms into a dynamic surface for the accumulation of gestures. From a theoretical standpoint, the project may be understood as aligning with participatory practices that, without compromising formal coherence, open the artistic dispositif to contingency and multiplicity.

The selection of POSCA as the instrument for this collective intervention is deliberate. Its ease of use, line control, and compatibility with multiple surfaces ensure an accessible experience without diminishing the visual potency of the outcome. In this way, the marker operates as a mediator between professional practice and spontaneous experimentation, dissolving technical hierarchies.

The title itself, The Rolling Collection, suggests a collection in motion—unfixed to a single space or definitive configuration. Its itinerant nature, combined with the incorporation of local interventions, transforms the project into an organism in continuous evolution. Within this framework, POSCA positions itself as a material catalyst for a transnational creative community. Long associated with urban scenes and emerging practices, the brand reinforces its identity as an ally of open, experimental, and collaborative processes.

POSCA x The Rolling Collection should not be understood merely as a collaboration between a company and a curatorial initiative; rather, it constitutes a strategic convergence of tool, discourse, and community. The project proposes a reflection on format, the global circulation of contemporary art, and the expansion of authorship, while POSCA provides the technical infrastructure that makes both individual works and collective experience possible.