Mexico mourns Pedro Friedeberg, a major figure in contemporary art

Surrealist creator Pedro Friedeberg, considered 1 of the astir prolific and eccentric artists to travel retired of Mexico, died astatine his location successful San Miguel de Allende connected March 5. He was 90 years old.

“Pedro died surrounded by his family, with overmuch emotion and successful peace,” his children said successful a statement. “His household feels profoundly grateful to person been capable to stock each this clip with him. His enactment and his originative tone permission an immense legacy.” 

Pedro Friedeberg, shown present astatine the inauguration of his 2014 accumulation “Muestra Manos por México” (Show Your Hands for Mexico), died peacefully connected Thursday successful his San Miguel Allende home, surrounded by family. (Rogelio Morales/Cuartoscuro.com)/

Friedeberg is survived by 2 children, Diana and David Friedeberg, arsenic good arsenic his wife, Carmen Gutiérrez.

Friedeberg’s enactment is recognizable for its ornamental exuberance and irony, often featuring symbolic references to religion, Mesoamerican codices and esoteric traditions, characteristics that earned him presumption arsenic a cult fig wrong modern and modern Mexican art.

His creator output spans much than six decades, encompassing painting, sculpture, furnishings plan and imaginary architectural projects. 

He erstwhile explained his creator attack by saying, “If lone I could dispersed retired everything that stirs wrong maine with specified heat, with specified exuberance of life, onto paper, turning it into a reflector of my soul.”

Though commonly labeled a Surrealist, Friedeberg bristled astatine being associated with that movement.

The National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature lamented Friedeberg’s passing, saying successful a connection that “the Mexican creation satellite mislaid … a cardinal fig of modern art.”

His passing “marks the nonaccomplishment of 1 of the astir eccentric and recognizable creators successful Mexico’s creation scene,” wrote the paper El Economista.

Born successful Florence, Italy, successful 1936 to German-Jewish parents, Friedeberg arrived successful Mexico with his household astatine the property of three. He attended assemblage successful Boston concisely earlier returning successful 1957 to survey architecture astatine Mexico City’s Ibero-American University.

There, 1 of his professors, Mathias Goeritz, convinced him to go an artist. Friedeberg worked summers arsenic an adjunct to Goeritz, a renowned creator and poet, during which clip helium met surrealists including Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington and Edward James.

His archetypal accumulation came astir successful 1959 astatine the Diana Gallery successful Mexico aft Varo recommended his enactment to the owners, and from determination his enactment expanded internationally.

In the aboriginal 1960s, Friedeberg, on with Goeritz, co-founded “Los Hartos,” a radical that included José Luis Cuevas, Chucho Reyes, Ida Rodríguez Prampolini and Alice Rahon. Los Hartos reacted against functionalist rationalism successful art, claiming to support a much imaginative and iconoclastic aesthetic, arsenic good arsenic the hierarchization of creation from individualism.

Friedeberg’s creation tin beryllium recovered passim Mexico, with notable works successful Mexico City, including the mural “Sixteen Riddles of a Hindu Astronaut” (in the Camino Real edifice successful Polanco), the sculpture “The Lighthouse of Silence” (in the Maia Contemporary creation gallery) and the “Listening successful the Metro” mural (in the Bellas Artes subway station).

Among his astir notable works is the 1962 instauration “The Hand of Akhenaten,” known familiarly arsenic “The Hand-Chair.”

Friedeberg besides submitted 34 of his works to the Finance Ministry implicit the years arsenic “payment successful kind,” saying successful 2014 that it “would assistance immortalize my work.”

With reports from El Economista, EFE and Art News