Alejandro Otero is one of the most influential Latin American artists of the twentieth century, and a key figure in the introduction of geometric abstraction in Venezuela. Tablón 32 (Board 32) belongs to a group of works that he designed in the 1970s and completed a decade later. Painted with Duco, a petroleum-based lacquer primarily used for cars, these glossy panels are a nod to the oil that impelled Venezuela’s leap to modernity in the mid-twentieth century. The work is meticulously conceived through the repetition of precise modules of color that produce a visual vibration. Across this series, Otero often collaborated with Pedro García Rubio, an experienced automobile painter who had restored some of his earlier Coloritmos (Colorhythms)—tall, vertical panels also painted with Duco.
Otero studied at the School of Fine and Applied Arts in Caracas in the 1940s, but grew impatient with its outmoded teaching methods and focus on figurative art. In 1945, he relocated to Paris, where his work quickly veered toward abstraction. Eager for change, in 1950 Otero cofounded the group Los Disidentes (The Dissidents) alongside fellow Venezuelan expatriate artists and intellectuals. In their exhibitions and eponymous magazine, the group advocated for the introduction of geometric abstraction and international modernism in Venezuela. By the time Otero returned to Caracas in 1952, his country was on the brink of massive transformation, driven by the petroleum boom that transformed Venezuela into the richest country of the region. He collaborated on several public projects, including the University City, a revolutionary complex that fostered modern architecture in Venezuela. Designed by the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva (1900–1975), this “city within a city” integrated works by local and European avant-garde artists, such as Alexander Calder and Jean Arp. Otero designed several of the schools’ facades, some distinguished by the rhythmic interplay of form and color, which are connected with his earlier experimentations with abstraction.
Ilona Katzew, Curator and department head, Latin American art
