Pedro Friedeberg - Bio
( Florence, Italy, January 11, 1936)
Pedro Friedeberg's career began in 1959 with his first solo exhibition at the Diana Gallery in Mexico City, encouraged by artists Remedios Varo and Mathias Goeritz.
His work had a magnificent reception and a year later it was included in the Retrospective Exhibition of Mexican Painting organized by the University City Museum.
In 1961 he founded the Los Hartos group, directed by Mathias Goertiz, in which José Luis Cuevas, Chucho Reyes, Ida Rodríguez Prampolini and Alice Rahon also participated, who spoke out against the pretension of the greatness of modern art in general, the exaggerated individualism and the signature of the artist who takes himself very seriously.
In 1968, Antonio Souza presented him as the artist of his gallery within the framework of the Cultural Olympiad program, a parallel event to the XIX Olympic Games in Mexico City.
At the same time, he produced a mural in the city at the Hotel Camino Real, and a series of stained glass windows for the World's Fair in San Antonio, Hemisfair '68.
In 1962, Friedeberg began his internationalization process and exhibited his work at the Carstairs Gallery in New York and at the Galerie Villa André Bloc, in Paris; where he presents for the first time his most iconic work: the Hand-Chair.
In 1963 he exhibited individual works at the Pan American Union in Washington, DC, at the Foz Palace in Lisbon, and at the Galerie Carroll in Munich.
In 1964 he participated representing Mexico in the Fourth Paris Biennale; in 1966, he represented it at the Third American Art Biennial in Córdoba in Argentina, in 1968, at the First International Exhibition of Modern Drawings in Rijeka, in 1969, at the X Biennial of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1970, at the Biennial of Uruguay based in Montevideo and, in 1973, at the II Coltejer Art Biennial in Medellín, Colombia.
In 1965 he was chosen by the Container Corporation of America to publish a drawing about the individual in Time magazine.
In 1966, it was included in the Labyrinthe Exhibition, at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Throughout the 60s and 70s his international activity caused interest in cities in the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, Japan and Israel.
Pedro Friedeberg is also one of the artists who rejected the status quo in Mexican art and joined the Confrontación '66 exhibition, thus forming part of the Ruptura movement.
In 1968 he was part of the exhibition organized by the José María Velasco Gallery, 50 Years of Painting in Mexico, and in 1971, at the Annual Salon of Mexican Plastic Arts.
In the 70s he began as an engraver, participating and winning awards in various exhibitions such as Pan-American Graphic Arts at the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the First International Biennial of Graphic Works in Segovia, Spain.
Also in this decade, Friedeberg concentrated on Mail Art, participating in world meetings in the United States, Italy, Argentina and Mexico.
His first institutional individual exhibition in Mexico was in 1973 at the Ex Convento del Carmen in Guadalajara and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Pátzcuaro.
In 1974 he held a traveling exhibition in Canada, together with José Luis Cuevas and Xavier Esqueda called Three Mexican Artists.
In 1979 he exhibited individual exhibitions at The Art Center Museum in Waco, Texas, at the Vaughan Collection in Canada and at the Casa de las Américas in Cuba.
Also in 1979 he won First Prize at the Latin American Engraving Triennial in Buenos Aires. This same year he founded, together with the artist Xavier Girón, the controversial gallery La Chinche in the Zona Rosa of Mexico City.
During the 80s he was represented by the Pecanins Gallery, who promoted his work in Barcelona and Mexico City. He participated in important exhibitions such as the Contemporary Art Forum, the Painting Exhibitions organized by the Banamex Fund, and in notable exhibitions such as the exhibition curated by the art historian and critic Teresa del Conde, called “The Artists Celebrate Orozco.” , in which the main contemporary Mexican artists paid tribute to the muralist.
In 1984, he exhibited at the Misrachi Art Gallery on the occasion of the publication of a book with a series of drawings inspired by the poetry of Pita Amor called La Jungla.
That same year he moved to San Miguel de Allende and in 1985 he held the first of seven exhibitions at the El Nigromante Cultural Center, the main forum for the visual arts in that city. At the same time, his international activity continues and he exhibits in France along with 18 other Mexican artists at the Cultural Institute of Mexico in Paris.
In 1986, the first review of his artistic work was carried out with the exhibition Clepsidra y Babilómetro at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in Mexico City. She participated in the collective Confrontación '86, which reviews the Ruptura generation 20 years later, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
In 1985, he exhibited in the United States at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and in 1989 in a traveling exhibition in the United States called The Latin American Spirit, which traveled.
In 1990 it began to be represented by the Mexican Art Gallery. In 1992 he had his first retrospective at the Veracruzano Institute of Culture.
He continues his international career in the United States, especially in New Orleans, Los Angeles, in the main cities of Texas and in Montreal, Canada.
In that same year, Friedeberg curated a tribute to Bridget Tichenor and performed at the Armory Show in New York.
In 1994 it was part of the Object-Subject exhibition curated by CURARE and Chairmania, exhibited at the National Design Museum in New York.
In 1996 he exhibited at the Casa Diego Rivera Museum in the City of Guanajuato and mail art at the Salón de San Miguel de Allende.
In 1997, he exhibited at the Omar Rayo Museum in Colombia and in 1998 he inaugurated his own gallery.
He continues his work as an engraver at the Taller Jesusa, at the National Print Museum and at the Historical Museum of San Miguel de Allende.
In 1997 he exhibited in Diálogos Insólitos at the MAM and Design for Delight, a traveling exhibition presented in Canada, France, Germany, Poland and five venues in the United States.
In 2001, he exhibited From Rupture to Geometrism, at the MAM, curated by Rita Eder.
In the same year he was included in Maestro Latinoamericanos, in the José Luis Cuevas Museum, and in the Pollak Collection. This year he began to participate in the SHCP Payment in Kind Collection.
In 2002 he had a Retrospective Exhibition at the Museum of Mexican History in Monterrey and in 2003, he participated in Apparently Sublime at the IX Bancomer Art Salon.
In 2005 he was part of the representation of Mexico as a special guest at the ARCO Fair in Madrid.
In 2009, he exhibited an important retrospective at the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts. Recently she has had exhibitions in the Old Archbishop's Palace, the PAPE Library, the Tijuana Cultural Center, the Iconographic Museum of Don Quixote, and the Philately Museum.
He was included in the California-Pacific Triennial in Orange County, California in 2013 and his work has been exhibited at the MAM in Diseñondo México 68, in 2008, Cinetismo, in 2012 and la Generación de la Ruptura y sus antecedents, in 2014; and at the University Museum of Contemporary Art in The Era of Discrepancy, in 2007, Transurbaniac, in 2011 and Challenge to Stability, in 2014.
In 1993 he received the Scholarship from the National System of Creators and in 2012 he received the Medal of Fine Arts.
In recent years Friedeberg has once again risen to international fame. Her work has been published in specialized art magazines. In Germany, France, Spain, Italy, England, the United States, among many others. In 2016 he presented the exhibition Casa Irracional at the Franz Mayer Museum, in 2017 he participated in exhibitions organized by the Getty Foundation at LACMA, the MAK Center and the Schindler House in the city of Los Angeles, California. He published a book of illustrations of Praise of Folly, written by Erasmus of Rotterdam in the first direct translation from Latin to Spanish. Currently he continues working in his studio in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City.
Alejandro Sordo
Source: https://www.pedrofriedeberg.com/bio