Julio Vengoechea

His mother died when Julio Vengoechea was very young, so his father, Urbano Vengoechea, decided to send him to study at the Staunton Military Academy, Virginia, United States, where he obtained several awards during his studies and graduated with honors obtaining the Kable. Legion of Honour. His father, Urbano, decides to settle in Maracaibo, Venezuela, with his two daughters Maritza, Vilma and Julio, who from an early age begins to develop his interest in the Arts. In 1955, he is accepted at the prestigious Georgia Technological Institute (Georgia Tech), in Atlanta, United States, where in 1964 he obtains the title of Industrial Engineer. After graduating he moved to Maracaibo where he works as an Industrial Engineer in a container manufacturing industry. Fotografo artistico In 1969 he settles in Caracas, Venezuela, where he has the opportunity to develop his interest in the arts, especially photography. It was initially inspired by the modernist work of the 60s, an era of the cold war that occupied most of the second half of the 20th century, which was marked by the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961. In 1970 he moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to carry out postgraduate studies in engineering at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, where at the same time he began his activity as a photographer. In 1973 he develops a unique technique that he called “Photorhythm”, which consists of creating a kaleidoscope from the symmetrical decomposition of a photo. In 1976 he studied photography at the New School for Social Research in New York, with George Tice and Jill Lynne. While in New York, his work focuses on capturing events from the street, in black and white. In 1977 he returned to Caracas where he was appointed director of audiovisual services at the National Library, until 1979, when he became a national. Venezuelan. From this moment Vengoechea turns to color photography and identifies with everyday urban planning: doors, windows, facades, cars; with a lively color and the subtle use of shadow, contrasting with the rustic and the deteriorated. In 1981 the book entitled “Maracaibo: The walls of the dream, with photos of Vengoechea and texts by the writer Laura Antillano (Cuadernos Lagoven) is published. . This same year, he participates in the collective “Los Venezolanos”, held at the Photographer’s Gallery in London, together with Paolo Gasparini, Roberto Fontana, Barbara Brändil and Federico Fernandez, among others. In 1982 he travels to Brussels where he stays for a year and continues exploring the urban with the presence of people. In 1988 the Center of Fine Arts of Maracaibo and the National Library in Caracas organized a retrospective as a posthumous tribute to his work. important antecedents both academically and in the field of photographic production and dissemination of the Photography Area of ​​the “Neptalí Rincón” Academy of Fine Arts, created in 1975. Fotografo artistico In the 1980s, Vengoechea was a professor at the Neumann Design Institute in Caracas, where he trained many Venezuelan photographers. At the same time, Paolo Gasparini joins forces with Julio Vengoechea, Teresa Montiel, Roberto Fontana and María Teresa Boulton, for the creation of the Venezuelan Council of Photography, which will absorb the Fototeca gallery created two years before, to become this new body. As Boulton points out, in contrast to the desire to receive information on photographic culture from the great centers of international power, which characterized the Fototeca gallery, the new Council will focus its efforts on the exhibition and organization of Venezuelan photography. In the article “Capitulated History of Photography in Venezuela” Vengoechea is mentioned as one of the outstanding photographers of the so-called “Professional Photography (1940-1980)” period. In August 2019, Alejandro Verderi writes a very complete retrospective on Vengoechea (https://www.viceversa-mag.com/evocando-y-convocando-a-julio-vengoechea/). A sample of the work of Julio Vengoechea was exhibited, along with that of other important Venezuelan photographers, in December 2019 in the Urban Photography Archive collection, in the Mendoza Room, of the Metropolitan University, Caracas, Venezuela.