My step-father bought this crazy Pedro Friedeberg painting in 1966 in Mexico City. It’s ink and paint on board, and the title is Hairless Hearts Of Some Hairy Nuns.
Here’s a large detail of the central rooster, who is saying “Pseudo-Cybernetics.”
Friedeberg is an esoteric, dada-esque, surrealist probably best known for his large, hand-shaped chairs. He seems like quite a character, sort of a Mexican Dali making spritist Vasarelys.
Hairless Hearts… was included in an exhibition at the Antonio Souza Gallery organized as a cultural sidebar to the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
Here is a list of the other paintings in the show:
- “A Machine Made to Frighten Tailors (Also Can Be Used To Slice Water)”
- “Luis XIV’s Discotheque”
- “Tehuana Orphanage”
- “Confessions of An Iconoclastic Sea-Urchin”
- “Madame De Pompadour’s Electric Chair”
- “The Aristocrats’ Lighthouse”
- “The Head of “Chez Twiggy,” An Old Peoples’ Home, In Her Pseudo-Cybernetics Style Uniform, ORders The Immediate Expulsion Of All False Optimists, In Inverse Alphabetical Order”
- “Good Morning, Miss Watermelon”
- “The Pockmarked Czarina Becomes Indignant Over The Statistics Presented By The Minister of Oceans And Clouds During A Round-Table Discussion On Eskimo Astrology At The Congress of Natural and Applied Pornography”
- Left Hand of the Viceroy Gumersidno Sirloin and The Hand of His Niece The Disreputable Marchioness Brujulilla De Bourbon”
- “Paganini’s Bath”
- “What We Found In Aristotle’s Pyjamas”
- “Orphanage for Squint-Eyed Children Sponsored By Baron Von Pipian”
- “Socrates’ Garbage Pail”
- “An Hermaphrodite Baby Elephant Learning Russian”
- “Afternoon Outing Of Little Beige Riding Hood”