Access a slow-looking exercise related to this work.

Transcript
Marilee Talkington: This work by Gego from 1960 is titled "Movimiento dinámico," or "Dynamic Movement." In this small black-and-white etching, about 15 inches tall by 12 inches wide, the artist has carefully crafted layers of thin lines that generate an optical effect of motion in an abstract composition.

In the background, the artist has etched a score of thin black vertical parallel lines that seem to waiver. The lines are running up and down the picture plane, except in moments where the artist has left open areas of negative space. The subtle tilted lines are etched with precision, spaced close together.

If we look at the lines from bottom to top, they align at the base of the etching and are spaced uniformly parallel. As we visually follow the lines upward, they waiver and end at the top at various heights, creating a shallow wave shape. The work captures a playful feeling of improvisation within structured forms.

While the lines fill up most of the composition, the artist has created moments of rest where the negative space is left alone to breathe. The first is a thin vertical strip on the left border of the composition that culminates in a downward triangular point at the midline of the piece. This triangular point aligns with the second moment of rest, a large floating rectangle placed at the center of the composition at a diagonal. This rectangle tilts upward toward the right. The two negative shapes never touch but their sharp points come close.

Starting from the top-left corner, a grouping of thin lines that are drawn in the same quality and thickness as the lines in the background drop down into the picture plane at a diagonal to the right. The lines start straight, then they touch the top-left corner of the rectangle. When the lines cross into the rectangle, they transform into gentle curves that loop once in a tight oblong ribbon before traversing upward again.

Then the lines curve into an upside-down “U” shape that curls up and over the rectangle and onto the vertical lines in the background. Moments of intersecting lines create darker and thicker lines, giving an illusion of dimensionality, before the “U” swoops back around and touches the right side of the rectangle.

The lines then briefly gather in a narrow grouping and twist together in space before fanning downward. Most of the lines continue past the rectangle and finish their journey at the bottom of the composition, center right. At the same time, others changed direction to the left to touch the rectangle's bottom diagonal edge. They eventually intersect with yet another set of lines that had split off from the top curve of the “U.”

Although the rectangle could be read as negative space, it is also the star of the show. It interacts with the artist’s lines without being defined by any one line. Its sides are not outlined; rather, its shape is defined by what is and is not drawn there. The rectangle is pivotal to the composition because it is the space into which so much movement gathers.

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