Resonant Space: The Colorhythms of Alejandro Otero

TThe Venezuelan painter and sculptor Alejandro Otero (1921–1990) was one of the most significant artists in the history of abstraction. Between 1955 and 1960, he developed an extraordinary series of 75 paintings called Coloritmos (Colorhythms), one of his major contributions to the field of painting. Painted with Duco, a shiny industrial lacquer applied with a spray gun or roller, the Colorhythms are large-scale compositional modules executed on rectangular support structures. In these works, Otero succeeded in emphasizing rhythm and color over form; as a consequence of optical intensity, chromatic vibration, and the suggestion of rhythmic movement, the pictures seem to expand dynamically outward. This illuminating book, the first dedicated to Colorhythms, evaluates their place in Otero’s practice and in the context of international geometric abstraction.