Pedro Friedeberg
Pedro Friedeberg (born January 11, 1936) is an Italian-born Mexican artist and designer known for his surrealist work filled with lines colors and ancient and religious symbols.
Friedeberg became part of a group of surrealist artists in Mexico which included Leonora Carrington and Alice Rahon, who were irreverent, rejecting the social and political art which was dominant at the time.
He says he does not talk about his childhood because it was “German,” describing it as “discipline,” “torture” and “punishment.” He was made to learn violin and speak several languages and he hated to be at home.
His professors favored symmetrical architecture such as that of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who designed the Seagram Building in New York, which Friedeberg thought boring.
[2] Through family and friends he met surrealist artists such as Remedios Varo, who recommended his work to Galería Diana, leading to Friedeberg’s first exhibition in 1960 when he was only twenty two.
From these connections, he began to meet other surrealist artists such as Leonora Carrington and Alice Rahon to become a member of Los Hartos (The Fed-Up), in 1961.
They asked thirty artists to create bug words and called Pita Amor their muse, with the idea of ridiculing “-isms” or movements in art.
[5] Friedeberg has had a tendency to protect and defend those who have lost their fame and fortune, such as Pita Amor did in her old age, when she was ridiculed by elements of Mexican society.
On Thursdays I usually relax whereas on Friday I write autobiographies”[7] He says that the world lacks eccentrics today because people have returned to being sheep through the consumer culture and television which wants us all to be the same.
When he dies, he says he hopes to be buried at the same Venice cemetery where Stravinsky and Diaghilev are, in a tomb with a white gondola and black feathers.
[8] Awards include the Córdoba Argentina Biennale in 1966 (2nd prize), the Solar Exhibition in Mexico City in 1967 (1st prize), the Argentina Engraving Triennale in Buenos Aires in 1979, the XI Biennale of Graphic Works in Tokyo (Special Award) in 1984 and was named an “Artistic Creator” by the National System of Mexican and Foreign Creators in 1993.
[8] These books include his autobiography published in Mexico “De vacaciones por la vida, Memorias no autorizadas” (On vacation for life, Unauthorized memories) edited by Trilce and CONACULTA .
[11] In his autobiography, Friedeberg writes about experiences with his many friends in the art world, including Salvador Dalí, Leonora Carrington, Kati Horna, Tamara de Lempicka, Mathias Goeritz, Edward James, Zachary Selig and Bridget Bate Tichenor.
[10] However, there is a dream like quality as well, painting impossible palaces and other structures, with innumerable halls and rooms, secret passages and stairs which are often absurd.
[11] Irony and surfeit are generally expressed through the almost hallucinogenic repetition of elements and formal disorder, but it is the result of conscious thought.
[10] Paintings, furniture and more are often characterized as being filled with ornamentation, with little or no white space, with lines, colors and symbols referencing ancient scriptures, Aztec codices, Catholicism, Hinduism and the occult.
[2] He has called his extensive ornamentation, which includes elements from ancient texts, “Nintendo Churrigueresque”[10] Friedeberg belongs to a group of 20th century surrealist artists, which in Mexico include Gunther Gerzso, Mathias Goeritz, Alice Rahon, Kati Horna, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Paul Antragne, who were grouped together under the name of Los Hartos.
