Lost and Found: Pedro Friedeberg's Art in Mexico City
I was going to make this post a number of months ago, but then I thought I had lost the images (which are really the main part of it). As it happens so often, they were not lost, but stored in a safe place, meaning a separate folder, making sure I would not delete them. So now, I want to really make sure they will stay safe, and post them on the blockchain.
A Curious Coincidence
It was back in March, just before I left Mexico City, when my wife's niece invited us to an art exhibition in the hipsterized Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. I wanted to go, but first I wanted to stop by a mind-blowing image I came across in Polanco, which I was going to use for CCC's weekly Street Art Contest. It was not a graffiti by far, nor was it on an actual wall. Instead, it looks like some type of billboard, though the fading colors suggest it has been up for a while. It's probably still up, you can check it out at the end of Lago Onega street, just before the Ave. Rio San Joaquín urban highway.
The colorful geometric symbols converging on a point in the distant center of the image give the entire piece a trippy feeling. Some of its features seem to be completely abstract, others look like something you may want to get a closer look of. In any case, I wanted to find out more about this art, and hopefully about the artist. Little did I know that I was about to!
The Same Art At The Exhibition
Imagine my surprise, when arriving at the exhibition I was confronted by the same style. Not something similar, that may have been inspired by what I saw on the bill board, it was literally the same, but in various frames.
Diagrams, classical images, cartoons, numeric and alphabetical symbols, mystic traditions, pop icons, all styles of architecture, science and mathematics, even traffic signs are arranged in a surreal perspective, emphasizing the weird relationship of the viewer with the rest of the world, portrayed in this way. Who is this genius, and how did he come up with all this?
The artist's name is Pedro Friedeberg, and his work goes back to the 1960's. For this extraordinary style called Hipnerotomagia he takes his inspiration from a 15th century tale by Francesco Colonna, which must be quite surrealist in itself. The archetypal concepts, the sacred geometry, numerology, Eastern and Western mysticism, combine into a long lasting visual experience. It actually took me a while to pull myself away from each picture, even if only to move on to study the next one.
I'm still debating if I should use this post as my entry to this week's contest. Impressive as the billboard image is, there was no way I could get any closer (though apparently, that's exactly what the image wants), so you can't really see it that well. The rest of the pics I took at the exhibition are far from being street-art, and also I'm not in Mexico right now (though that's really besides the point). In any case, I still hope you enjoyed my post, and if Pedro Friedeberg comes to your town, make sure to check out his art! It's certainly worth it.
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Hola @stortebeker
I posted the perfect Mexican street food to go with your Mexican street art.
Please take a look!
https://peakd.com/hive-120586/@missagora/for-the-hungry-king
Greetings from Mexico. @missagora
Thanks for the link, and the share, and the mention... and the amazing food you posted! 😍
Aww,you are so kind. I would like to thank you for your support!
I have another question. How many languages do you speak? Spanish and English, of course. I ask because Klaus Störtebeker was a German pirate and German is my mother tongue.
In any case, your Spanish is great. I still torture myself every day with Duolingo to learn Spanish, but it takes time. But I get by quite well here in Mexico with my "spaningles".😂
Well, the languages that I actually do speak are English - duh! Formal schooling, and then spending many years in the US, Canada, NZ, etc. German, since I went through the education system in Germany, Spanish, where I had barely any classes, just acquired it by living in Mexico, being married to a Mexican, and finally Hungarian, which is my native tongue.
Keep up the Spanish, it's worth it!
And what other language do you speak? Russian?
Yes, I speak english, german. I learned in school for 8 years russian. I lived in Greece, so a little bit of greek I can speak too (because the letters a similar to russian) and now I living in Mexico, but we are speaking english at home. My kids speaking fluent english, german and spanish. Still some greek and a little bit of japanese (training Martial arts) and sign language.
That sounds like a great mix. Your kids have a very good basis to build on top of.
Thank you! I try my best.
Cool work it may be on an old billboard, but it looks good. Nice exhibition with the same style. Thanks for sharing these pics on The StreetArt Community.
Thanx for appreciating it.