ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the work of eight artists to tell a story about affective life. It proposes that there were two different modes of considering the shadow, one symbolic and one affective. Symbolic shadows work through semiotic, often iconic mechanisms that borrow ultimately from the structure of language. The chapter shows how affect theory treats space in the works of Gego and Janet Echelman. Gego’s wire sculptures hang like constellations in the gallery while Echelman’s colossal outdoor suspensions float above cities like illuminated galaxies. It explores that Gego uses lines and networks to deterritorialize space so that social networks rather than geographic borders constitute place. The chapter considers the scholarship of Monica Amor to be central to this conversation. Amor offers compelling, fastidiously researched criticism showing that Gego’s Reticularea keenly reference social spaces of marginalized and under-resourced people, particularly in Caracas.
