Pedro Friedeberg: Amaze me and I amaze you

Dot Fiftyone presents their first solo show of the celebrated Mexican artist Pedro Friedeberg. With a career spanning more than six decades, the artist is considered an outstanding and emblematic cultural figure. The exhibition’s title, “Amaze me and I amaze you (Asómbrame y te asombro)“, refers to the painting that opens the exhibition, inviting the viewer into an encounter with Friedeberg’s breadth of work, to be amazed and surprised.

This exhibition showcases recent paintings, drawings, sculptures, and serigraphs, many realized during the pandemic. The show also boasts the artist’s debut NFT piece, as his practice continues to evolve in the contemporary context. Dot Fiftyone brings together for the first time both left- and right-hand ‘Mano-Sillas‘ from 2020, renewing our perspective on the complexity of this ongoing project that stems from a dialogue with the surrealist Andre Breton.

Friedeberg employs a combination of levity and expansive iconography in his oeuvre, subverting notions of fine and popular art and navigating between fantasy and symmetry. His work includes references to different religions and esoteric beliefs, animals, architectural elements, extremities of the body, the idea of time, as well as Mexican, pre-Columbian imagery. The hypnotic gold and bright colors he uses convey his jovial spirit while the breadth of symbols and figures impart his erudition and architectonic perspective.