Pedro Friedeberg

Saenger Gallería presents Simetrías y puntos de fuga. 70 years of creation, by Pedro Friedeberg. Curated by Michel Blancsubé.

Pedro Friedeberg's work is often related to surrealism, whose development in Mexico extended far beyond the European firsts, interrupted by World War II. In fact, one wonders if this country was not surreal before Europeans dreamed or even suspected the possibility of something surreal.

Let's move on to words and hands, both of which definitely occupy a special place in the exuberant universe of Pietro Enrico Hoffman Landsberg called Pedro Friedeberg shortly after his arrival in Mexico in 1939. Friedeberg means “mountain of peace” in German, which in itself, more than ever, is a whole program. Thomas Mann's famous Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg, 1924) comes immediately to mind, or perhaps it is just another of my witticisms, although the idea of magic is not necessarily peaceful, but quite the opposite. My intuition was confirmed by the discovery of the transcription of a fragment of the sixth chapter of the Magic Mountain in Aterbil / Ogolatac II, published by Friedeberg in 2022. As for the hands, in addition to the famous Hand-Chair invented in 1961, the artist adorns his sculptures with feet and hands, which also give stability to his chairs, tables and furniture of all kinds, not to mention the countless limbs that constantly punctuate his paintings and drawings.

To say that Friedeberg is prolific is an understatement: his graphics multiply like fish in another tale. His work is the unbridled expression of the excesses of a totally uninhibited free spirit who embraces whatever crosses his mind with avidity, fruition and glee; all handled with erudition, application, determination and? talent.

It is not rare to find writings integrated in his compositions, or even vast surfaces that the artist saturates with texts borrowed from writers of all styles and from very different periods, as in the case of Sopa de letras y letras de sopas (2023). Erudition is one of Friedeberg's cardinal values, and confers an encyclopedic dimension to his graphic work, which also owes much to the artist's training as an architect.

Some of his architectural compositions share the structural aesthetics of video games. Friedeberg continues to elaborate by hand, with rulers and compasses, what a younger generation of creators achieves thanks to the computer when it comes to constructing virtual theaters of often bellicose scenarios. This approach gives us the opportunity to mention the timelessness of Friedeberg's drawings, which refer as much to ancient graphic treatments as to those imagined today by digital virtuosos. Friedeberg, like Filippo Brunelleschi, was born in Florence. To think that his fondness for vanishing points is due to that shared birthplace is too easy, not to say nonsensical. Nevertheless, it is true that most of his compositions are built according to geometrical laws based on perspectives invented by his illustrious predecessor in the 15th century: vanishing points and axes of symmetry are the tools that order the pictorial space into which our imagination is invited to venture.

–Michel Blancsubé