GEGO – GERTRUD LOUISE GOLDSCHMIDT

DE 2013

The film GEGO | Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt was commissioned by the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart and the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds. 

Director’s statement
When I start to think on a film, I begin with a great deal of research on the artist. This may involve catalogues and books, but also exchanges with art historians and curators. Then there is my own view, as an artist looking at another artist, to feel the work and to ask myself why this work is important in the history of art. In the case of Gego, the key was a questionnaire she received from Professor Trapp of the University of Hamburg.  The university was researching for a study about exiled Jews. She filled out the form, but she never sent it back. For me, this was the connecting thread for the film, and I had part of her answers read at the beginning by Gego’s daughter, Barbara Gunz It is moving to watch her reading because it is also moving for her to read aloud words her mother wrote concerning question of Jews in exile and her mother’s destiny, as well as that of her entire family. For all the members are now dispersed all around the world. When we look at Gego’s work, Reticularea (1969), there is a mathematic dimension to link one form to another, but there is also a human dimension to link people, like a network to join imaginatively all her family members.

Generally, I do the photography of my films myself. My framing depends on which artist I’m working on. As I would like to stay close to the artist’s work and the period he or she worked in. I try to stay in a lot of the place where I am working, try to return there a number of times and search for what I need to be closest to the work.

For Gego, her work is based on the line. She took this idea from Paul Klee. For him, the line was a dot going for a walk. I wanted to draw a line into the film, a thread with all the protagonists, so I asked them all to wear white and also to read the Gego quotes in different languages. One begins a sentence in English, the next continues it in German and the third will conclude it in Spanish. With this kind of story-telling, I had my aspect in line with her way of thinking on art and my biographic aspect: Gego spoke and thought in these three languages. Gego didn’t grow up in a Jewish tradition but in a German tradition. This was an important component in deciding which kind of music to use for the film. With Vladyslav Sendecki we decided to have something close to the style of  J.S. Bach for all the biographical parts in the film, while using a little melody that is almost out of tune to underline the fact that Gego was an enfant terrible, as she described herself in her writings. An almost acoustic music references the spatial dimension of her work.


Documentary54 min. (English, Spanish, German with English and German subtitles)

Featuring: Barbara Gunz, Brigitte Kölle, Petra Roettig, Ester Crespin, Ulrike Groos, Eva-Marina Froitzheim, María Elena Ramos, María Elena Huizi, Lisa Le Feuvre, Álvaro Sottillo, Ruth Auerbach, Josefina Manrique
Written & Directed by: Nathalie David
Original Score: Vladyslav Sendecki
Cinematography & Editing: Nathalie David
Sound Design & Mix: Clemens Endress
Production Manager: Priscilla Abecasis
Colour Grading: Martin Heckmann
Titles & Credits: Madeleine Dewald
Producer: Nathalie David – PITCHOUNPRODUCTION
Subtitling: Andrea Kirchhartz, Aïsha Mia Lethen Bird, Ariane Burghardt
Texts: Extracts from Sabiduras and other texts by Gego (2005), edited by María Elena Huizi and Josefina Manrique

Commissioned by: Hamburger Kunsthalle
Funded by: Ausstellungsfonds der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg / The German Federal Cultural Foundation
Supported by: Fundación Gego, Universitätsarchiv Stuttgart

©Nathalie David – PITCHOUNPRODUCTION & Hamburger Kunsthalle 2013

Visit: Fundación Gego
Visit: Vladyslav Sendecki

Screenings & Festivals
2014: FIFA – Festival International du Film sur l’Art, Montreal
FILAF – Festival International du Livre d’Art et du Film, Perpignan (In Competition)
2015: La Femme Film Festival, Los Angeles
2023:
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
The Brooklyn Rail, New York
Goethe Institute, Sofia, Bulgaria
Koki Cinema, Freiburg

Museum & Gallery Exhibitions
2022:
Gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan Rohatyn, Paris
Fundación Francisco Herrera Luque, Caracas, Venezuela
Museo de l’Arte, Caracas, Venezuela
Gallery Levy, New York
Hamburger Kunsthalle
Museum Stuttgart
Maison de l’Amérique Latine, Paris
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK
Arttable, New York