Untitled, 1976

He receives the Ridder Prize in sculpture, and an accompanying exhibition is held at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The winning work belongs to the series of objects that begin as pure geometric forms such as parellelepipeds, cylinders, and square or circular frames, and the material of which softens at a certain point of their structure as if it had melted. Manufacturing these pieces –which suggest degradation– involves constructing wooden structures, moulding plaster, polishing them repeatedly, coating the pieces with piroxilina lacquer, and, finally, painting them with acrylic metallic lacquers as the ones used in car manufacturing.

A further five pieces from this series, plus eighteen drawings, all covering similar themes, are exhibited  in November and December in a one-man show at the Carmen Waugh gallery in Buenos Aires. Critics praise the impeccable execution of the whole, pointing out that it transcends the chosen materials, with which Gómez achieves –they say– the quality of polyester. The artist, on his part, comments that, in the advertising material that he designs and constructs for a living, “it is