In this way, Constructivism and Kineticism became Venezuela’s National Aesthetic, leaving aside a group of artists, such as Eugenio Espinoza and Claudio Perna, who in turn created the alternative and truly avant-garde movement. Regarding gentrification, the Pérez Jiménez government, for example, created and promoted incredibly robust European migration programs, as well as housing blocks for the impoverished population, and educational programs where new generations were indoctrinated into the European and North-American styles of behavior.

In Spectacular Modernity, Vazquez- Figueroa comments on how it is presently impossible to be an artist from Venezuela without referring to this past and this aesthetic. While some continue to manufacture mere kinetic derivatives without questioning their origins and much less their current relevance, the question and subject prevails with others to the point of fracture.

In this focus exhibition, Vazquez- Figueroa presents mirror boxes filled with the planet’s heaviest crude oil – bitumen – intervened with elements of Constructivism and Kineticism inherited from the keen perspective of Eugenio Espinoza; these boxes reflect and distort space and the spectator. A similar phenomenon resonates in the black mirror paintings with highly reflective resin. Vazquez-Figueroa also presents photographs of the period in question, intervened with resin — a reference to the oil of some of the mega projects realized during that time.