Docomomo International is pleased to announce the conversation about the work of Miguel Arroyo Castillo (Caracas, 1920-2004), a central figure in 20th century modern art in Venezuela. The presentation “Miguel Arroyo y el diseño moderno de mobiliario” [“Miguel Arroyo and modern furniture design”] will be given online by Lourdes Blanco de Arroyo and Rafael Pereira Escalona. This cycle is organized by Trasnocho Centro Cultural, Forma M20 and Docomomo Venezuela and will take place on Thursday, August 27, 2020, at 6:00 pm CCS Time (GMT – 4) with the support of the Zoom platform.
In the 1950s he designed more than a hundred pieces of furniture, using local woods and his knowledge of national crafts. Arroyo was a “ceramist, teacher, curator. Museographer, writer, historian and promoter of the arts and their conservation, interior designer: his career reminds us of that of the Renaissance man (“Interior Moderno”, Sala TAC, Trasnocho Cultural, Caracas , June 2005). In 1992 he received the National Prize for Plastic Arts. His legacy is a primary reference in the history of design and modern art in Venezuela.
In the world of Venezuelan art, Miguel G. Arroyo C., whose centenary will take place on August 29, is a multi-faceted figure among which the sixteen years as director of the Museum of Fine Arts (1959-1976) stand out; his pioneering understanding of modern art; his defense of abstraction as a contemporary movement in its time; his induction so that ceramics and other industrial arts, such as design, were recognized and valued; and as a furniture and museum designer. He was able to reach those levels because of his dedication to teaching and what he called his great students from various centers, such as the Liceo de Aplicacion, the School of Plastic Arts and Applied Arts, the Faculty of Architecture and the School of Arts, both from the UCV, and as well as the School of Architecture of the Simón Bolívar University. He is recognized as a pioneer of modern furniture design and with his assemblies, installations and organizational sense, he materially created the career of museography and museology. Jorge Rivas dedicated his doctoral thesis to him, entitled “Modern Design for Living in Venezuela: Miguel Arroyo and his Circle, 1948-1963”. But perhaps his most important contribution, as Patricia Velasco sums it up, was “teaching to see”, that “exceptional teaching capacity”, in the words of Eliseo Sierra, “to equip the gaze of the other with the sensitive tools that would allow him to dismantle the formal scaffolding of the work of art, in order to transform the gaze into a profound aesthetic experience”.
To register, please go to Trasnocho Centro Cultural website.
