Alejandro Otero: Cornerstone of Venezuelan abstract art (+seeding)

On August 13, 1990, Alejandro Otero, a Guayanese painter and sculptor who revolutionized kinetic and abstract art in Venezuela and with a career recognized in different parts of the world, died in Caracas.

From a very young age he came to Caracas to study at the School of Plastic Arts and Applied Arts. In 1942 he demonstrated his skill giving classes in the Plastic Experimentation course for children.

He finished his studies in 1944, but it was a year later that he traveled to Paris to continue expanding his knowledge at the Sorbonne School of Higher Studies, where he showed his inclination to the abstract influenced by the style of Pablo Picasso.

Together with a group of Venezuelan artists in Paris, he created “Los Disidentes”, as well as a magazine with the same name, whose objective was to promote abstract and revolutionary art in Venezuela.

Later he developed the Coloritmos: modular paintings of rectangular formats, made with modern materials such as automotive lacquer, applied with spray on wooden or plexiglass supports. The idea was to attract the spectator into a construction process where rhythms and spaces are confused, extending beyond the paintings themselves.

The National Executive decided that the La Rinconada Art Museum should bear the name of this great artist. The Alejandro Otero Visual Arts Museum, The MAO, as it is popularly known, has a collection of contemporary Venezuelan art, as well as part of the artistic production of the master Alejandro Otero, forerunner of modernity in Venezuela.

His works include:

Solar Structure (untitled), sculpture located in the Museum of Fine Arts; Kinetic windows at the Hotel Alba Caracas; Abra Solar, sculpture located in Plaza Venezuela; El Espejo Solar, sculpture located at the Simón Bolívar University.

Mazo News Team