PRÓXIMAMENTE...

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Pedro Friedeberg is one of the most widely celebrated living artists. Born in 1936, Friedeberg has maintained a prolific and remarkable artistic practice for more than sixty years, his influence being felt across generations of artists. It’s befitting that the artist is exhibiting at the San Antonio Mexican Cultural Institute, the original Mexican Pavilion of the 1968 Hemisfair International Exposition, where Friedeberg participated in one of the pavilions.  The artist has visited San Antonio countless times, and his work is part of the permanent collections of art museums, university collections, and private collections across the city.

While he might best be known for his iconic Hand Chair (first designed by him in 1962), Friedeberg’s work extends beyond furniture and design to visually intricate paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Friedeberg’s works point to the elegant precision, irreverence, and iconoclasm that have garnered him cult-like status outside of Mexico and long overdue critical recognition as one of the most significant artists in Latin America. Throughout his six-decade career, Friedeberg has developed a formal universe that brings together various iconographies and influences from Op Art, Surrealism, Pop Art, and architectural design to religious symbology evoking Catholicism, Hinduism, Aztec codices, and signs of the occult.

First studying architecture, Friedeberg shifted to art with the encouragement of his mentor Mathias Goeritz, a post-war artist and art professor who was critical in bringing Mexico to the larger international art world. Friedeberg soon became part of a legendary group of Surrealist artists, including Leonora Carrington, Kati Horna and Remedios Varo, known for rejecting the social and political art dominant at the time. With their influence and the influx of Pop Art in the 1960s, Friedeberg’s work is often absurdist in tone, critiquing high/low cultural hierarchies. In this way, Friedeberg’s objects, such as his signature Hand Chair and Butterfly Chair, are perfect amalgams of the fantastical with the everyday. The hand-shaped chair, often referred to as Surrealist sculpture, and its conical base design rejects the works of his contemporary furniture designers. The Blue Butterfly Chair with blue, gold, and lilac colors has feet at the end of each leg and hands as the antennae. The work resembles Victorian / Art Nouveau furniture pieces, which were not considered tasteful at the time of its production and design by Friedeberg. Taking the butterfly surrealist imagery and mixing it with his anti-modernist trademark, Friedeberg created one of his most iconic works. As shared with Elda Silva in a 2016 interview for the San Antonio Express-News, 

“Many (artists) become known for one (thing) because people need an anchor,” said Friedeberg, his voice gravelly and low. “Like Tamayo was very well known for his watermelons. Duchamp is, of course, well known for his pissoir. Miró is known for his amoebas. And, of course, Botero is known for his fat people.”

On view alongside his sculpture and design objects are the artist’s rarely exhibited paintings, which to some extent, have been overshadowed by the success of his furniture designs. These works play a crucial role in Friedeberg’s multidisciplinary practice: the densely patterned compositions—intricate architectural spaces, ideograms, and repeating visual systems—create layers of meaning within each image. Architecture has always played a role in Friedeberg’s life. His family home was designed by Max Cetto, the German architect who played an essential role in Modern architecture in México. Friedeberg studied architecture at university before deciding to dedicate his life to art; the influence of architecture has always been present and recognized by him. In a 2017 interview with Hans Ulrich-Obrist, he shares, “I’ve always been fascinated by the Renaissance perspective, like Paolo Uccello and Andrea Mantegna, and I’ve often been to Vicenza to look at the Teatro Olimpico and to Rome for the Borrominis and the Berninis.” 

Some new paintings in Pedro Friedeberg: Coloso de Rodas exhibit were conceptualized and painted in 2020, during global uncertainty and upheaval as the Coronavirus pandemic spread. The paintings partly reflect this altered reality and reveal a new energy visible in works like, En tiempos de Raymundo Lull or No hay mal que bien no venga.!Recorchiles, Caspita, Cielos! These compositions embody Friedeberg’s renewed attention to fine detail and color while referencing pop culture, history, architecture, and text, creating complex topographies that speak to Friedeberg’s pastiche approach of marrying wide-ranging cultures and interests into his work.

Friedeberg mixes classical, modern, and pop culture elements in En Tiempos del Rey Bomba. We can see the repetition in different sizes of Ancient Greek drawings, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mickey Mouse, and Betty Boop, just to name three characters—likewise, his characteristic use of geometrical designs and color ties together the composition.  The artist portrays architectural fantasies in several of his pieces. Rejecting modernism, minimalism, and the emptiness it evoked, Friedeberg creates a parallel architectural world. In Afinidades electivas, we can see the depiction of two Mesoamerican pyramids. The work includes three-dimensional geometrical elements both surrounding and within the structures.

In the words of curator Dan Cameron, “To a significant degree, the question of meaning in Friedeberg’s work seems to hinge directly on the accumulation of separate details that each seem anchored to different orders of signification. A dream logic holds the elements together by hinting at an oblique order that remains elusive to the conscious mind.” The visual experience is somewhat akin to deciphering a rebus or set of hieroglyphics: one’s subjective sense of visual form and narrative determines the sequencing without overt interference from the conscious mind.” Vientos Alisios, or trade winds in English, are the winds that blow from East to West. In this case, the artist metaphorically uses the name to reference different colonial journeys throughout history. For instance, the first ship from left to right has Christopher Columbus's name, the one to its right belongs to Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, and so on. Moreover, the overall flow of the piece mimics the trade winds' movement and includes elements brought from one hemisphere to another. The harps include the names of the instrument composers and well-known players.

In his body of work, Friedeberg references cultural symbols and beliefs. The depiction of a hand with an eye usually means good fortune and protection. This could allude to the "hamsa," a palm-shaped amulet popular throughout North Africa and the Middle East. In the sculptural stool "Tercer Banco,” Friedeberg carves a cross on the seat and attaches several hands with eyes to the chair's legs. Friedeberg uses the hand, often seen as a surrealist motif, throughout his work. "Tercer Banco" may also be a wordplay. The Spanish word "banco" can mean either stool or bank; since the hand with an eye is a sign of luck, this stool could be a good fortune sculpture.

Pedro Friedeberg: Coloso de Rodas exhibition reflects the eclecticism of his career with a mix of works that includes paintings, sculptures, and prints. He has been a multidisciplinary artist for many years before it was a trend; by multidisciplinary, I mean he has been involved in architecture, theater, and ballet design, besides being a visual artist. A polyglot and one of the most well-read persons I have ever met, he brings to his work so many critical historical references and obscure passages in history. The works presented at the Instituto Cultural de México embody Friedeberg’s renewed attention to fine detail and color while referencing pop culture, history, architecture, and text, creating complex topographies that speak to Friedeberg’s pastiche approach of marrying wide-ranging cultures and interests into his work.

Coloso. Del lat. colossus, y éste del gr. kolossós.

1. m. Estatua de proporciones gigantescas.

2. m. Persona o cosa que sobresale por sus cualidades grandiosas o excepcionales.

Pedro Friedeberg es un coloso surrealista: arquitecto, artista universal, diseñador ciclópeo y escultor hercúleo, que ha mezclado en su arte aritmética, geometría, simbolismo religioso, espiritualismo y clasicismo. Declara haber sido influenciado desde corta edad por la teosofía, el catolicismo, el ateísmo, las costumbres orientales y sentirse fascinado por la arquitectura católica, judía, prehispánica, egipcia, griega, romana y gurdjieffiana. En sus obras descomunales abundan elementos arquitectónicos de estas culturas milenarias: gárgolas, acróteras, plintos, estilóbatos, columnas, pilastras, frontones y cornisas; laberintos, patrones repetitivos y perspectivas en blanco y negro infinitas y fantásticas. Hace uso abundante del color para separar los elementos, siendo sus preferidos el turquesa, el lapislázuli y el dorado, así como de textos en español, alemán, francés, latín y hebreo. Dando como resultado lo que André Bretón llamó: poema-objeto. Friedeberg es el coloso del exceso, la ironía y la creatividad.

"El poema-objeto es una criatura anfibia que vive entre dos elementos: el signo y la imagen, el arte visual, y el arte verbal. Un poema-objeto se contempla y, al mismo tiempo, se lee. Su valor estético es central: maravillarse con signos, imágenes y palabras. Es simbolismo sublime en cuanto que afecta nuestro ánimo y amplía nuestra imaginación hasta el tamaño del mundo". 

 - Octavio Paz