november 22–november 25

Books

Exhibitions

  • “Pedro Friedeberg,” Reyna Henaine

Films

  • Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, directed by Werner Herzog
  • Mon oncle, dir. Jacques Tati
  • L’École des facteurs, dir. Jacques Tati

pedro friedeberg: an introduction

“I was born in Italy during the era of Mussolini, who made all trains run on time. Immediately thereafter, I moved to México where the trains are never on time, but where once they start moving they pass pyramids.

My education was first entrusted to a Zapotec governess and later to brilliant mentors such as Mathias Goeritz, who taught me morals, José González, who taught me carpentry, and Gerry Morris, who taught me to play bridge.

I have invented several styles of architecture, as well as one new religion and two salads. I am particularly fond of social problems and cloud formations. My work is profoundly profound.

I admire everything that is useless, frivolous and whimsical. I hate functionalism, post modernism and almost everything else. I do not agree with the dictum that houses are supposed to be ‘machines to live in’. For me, the house and it’s objects is supposed to be some crazy place that make you laugh.

Americans do not understand Mexicans and viceversa. Americans find Mexicans unpunctual, they eat funny things and act like old-fashioned Chinese. When André Breton came to Mexico he said it was the chosen Country of surrealism. Breton saw all kinds of surrealist things happen here every day. The surrealists are more into dreaming, into the absurd and into the ridiculous uselesness of things. My work is always criticizing the absurdity of things. I am an idealist. I am certain that very soon now humanity will arrive at a marvelous epoch totally devoid of Knoll chairs, jogging pants, tennis shoes and baseball caps sideway use, and the obscenity of Japanese rock gardens five thousand miles from Kyoto.

I get up at the crack of noon and, after watering my pirañas, I breakfast off things Corinthian. Later in the day I partake in an Ionic lunch followed by a Doric nap. On Tuesdays I sketch a volute or two, and perhaps a pediment, if the mood overtakes me. Wednesday I have set aside for anti-meditation. On Thursdays I usually relax whereas on Friday I write autobiographies.”

(from his official site.)

november 6–november 17

Books

Exhibits

  • “Dense-local y Del Exilio al Insilio ¿somos todos extranjeros?,” Labratorio Arte Alameda, México, D.F.
  • “Pedro Friedeberg: arquitecto de confusiones impecables,” Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, México, D.F.
  • “Los desmembrados,” Museo Nacional de Arte, México, D.F.
  • “Remedios Varo y la literatura: para leer a Remedios Varo”/”Hecho en casa,” Museo de Arte Moderno, México, D.F.
  • “De la tierra a la luna”/”Yo uso perfume para occupar más espacio”/”Yoshua Okón: Ventanilla única,” Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, México, D.F.
  • “Tauromaquia: mano a mano”/”Colección Alejandro Alvarado,” Museo Nacional de la Estampa, México, D.F.
  • “Robert Waters: Taparrabo,” Ex Teresa Arte Actual, México, D.F.
  • “Salón de Estampa, seis décadas de producción,” Salón de la Plástica Mexicana, México, D.F.
  • Museo Mural Diego Rivera, México, D.F.
  • Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, México, D.F.
  • Museo de Arte Popular, México, D.F.
  • Museo Franz Mayer, México, D.F.
  • Museo Templo Mayor, México, D.F.
  • Casa Luis Barragán, México, D.F.
  • “Luis Urrutia: Límites de luz,” Casa Lamm, México, D.F.
  • “Sandra Gamarra: Selección natural”/”Jorge Méndez Blake: 3 bibliotecas,” Galeria OMR, México, D.F.
  • “Jay Chung & Q. Takeki Maeda: Outtakes and Excerpts,” Gaga Arte Contemporáneo, México, D.F.

what’s water?

For David Foster Wallace

This guy got lost in the snow. Then found.
Then came a sense of having lost the snow
or lost water or some infinite thing.

He watched the ME channel, day in and
day out. He couldn’t help it: An old fish
swam by some little fish, asking,

how’s the water? The skeletons in one
show taught parables about greed, envy,
and lust, to show that vices lead to loss.

This little rat got obsessed with
weight lifting and sex, for example.
She preened on, licking her tail & feet.

But the rat had already been lost, clearly,
or had already lost. From the beginning,
she looked thirsty. Her dark eyes peered out

as if toward some infinite thing, some body
of water from which to drink,
across which might be a horizon.

The guy remembered his time in Alaska
when, close to death, he had longed for God
with a purity that felt close to God, how

afterward the longing ebbed, and even
snow went back to being a hassle, often
dirty. The skeleton said truth every time

the rat said beauty. In the wild, you have to
melt snow before you drink it. He had known
that much, to separate the air from water.

(Heather Green, from No Omen.)

noted

october 31–november 5

Books

Films

  • Les diaboliques, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
  • Il divo, dir. Paolo Sorrentino
  • Velocità, dir. Tina Cordero, Guido Martina & Pippo Oriani
  • Stramilano, dir. Corrado D’Errico
  • Thaïs, dir. Anton Giulio Bragaglia
  • Excelsior, dir. Luca Comerio
  • Amor pedestre (Love Afoot), dir. Marcel Fabre
  • Des pieds et des mains (Feet and Hands), dir. Jacques Feyder & Gaston Ravel
  • Fait-divers (A Collection of Facts), dir. Claude Autant-Lara
  • Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday), dir. Jacques Tati

Exhibits

  • “Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156–1868,” Met
  • “Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans,” Met