Felipe Ehrenberg

Felipe Ehrenberg (Tlacopac, City of Mexico, 1943) is a Mexican artist

His artistic career of more than 50 years covers drawings and paintings as well as conceptual art of the seventies, mail art and mimeography, a neographical technique, which he is a pioneer of. His multifaceted personality makes a classical classification of his work difficult, so Felipe Ehrenberg defines himself as a neologist since the seventies; a neologism which underlines the experimental and renovating characteristic of his work. He considers himself an artist, chronicler, professor, politician, diplomatic, editor, actor, organizer and tireless traveler.

Biography

Felipe Ehrenberg, artist, editor, essayist, professor and activist, was born in Tlacopac, Mexico City, in 1943. Recognized internationally for his pioneering work investigating unorthodox visual media like mail art, media art, performances and installations, his predecessor work in editions of artists and books about artists is also fundamental.

He started his education as editor, continuing later as visual and graphical artist with different mentors, amongst which muralist José Chávez Morado, painter and sculptor Feliciano Béjar and the artist Mathías Goeritz stand out. He presented his first exposition already in 1960, in a collective exhibition organized at Galeria de la Paz, Mexico City, and exhibited his work at other exhibitions in the same city and Acapulco later between 1963–1964. His first individual exhibitions 'La Montaña" and "Dibujos y Epoxis" were set up in 1965 at Galería del Centro de Arte y Artesanía and at Galería 1577 respectively. Between 1964 and 1967 he was of the Art section of México City Times, an English publication, where he also wrote under the pseudonym "Montenegro". In the last years of the decade his work was shown frequently in individual as well as in collective exhibitions and started gaining international attention, like his exhibits in Texas and New Jersey as well as Argentina. In 1968 he represented Mexico in Salón Codex de Pintura Latinoamericana de Buenos Aires, where he won the prize "Premio Femirama de pintura". 1968, a crucial year in all political movements globally, is also fundamental in Mexican history: a week before the inauguration of the Olympic Games in Mexico City, the military threw down a student demonstration, during which hundreds of participants died. Impressed by the situation and in danger of being imprisoned, Ehrenberg decideed to go into exile to England with his family. It was there, with David Mayor and Martha Hellion, that Salón Codex de Pintura Latinoamericana de Buenos Aires was founded, a collective exhibition of artists dedicated to present the work of numerous important visual poets, conceptual artists, neo-dadaists and experimental artists, many of which were connected to the Fluxus movement. During these years Ehrenberg formed part of the foundation of the group "Polygonal Workshop", where he won the Perpetua Prize for the design and illustration of Opal Nation's "The Man Who Entered Pictures, 1974", edited by Southwestern Arts Association/ British Arts Council. Ehrenberg returned to Mexico in early 1974, moving to Xico, a small town in the state of Veracruz. Continuing with his collective vocation, he joins Victor Munoz, Carlos Finck and Jose Antonio Hernandez Amezcua, to found "Grupo Process Pentagono", a seminal movement which was later known as Movimiento Grupal. Besides continuing to develop his artistic career, Ehrenberg also started his teaching career, giving courses in installations, cultural activism and administration for the artists at Universidad Veracruzana. In 1975 he received the Guggenheim scholarship for his investigation of the duality of Latin American culture, concentrating on "schizophrenic attitudes and schismatic in visual arts as a result of bilingualism". In 1979 he founded H2O (Haltos 2 Ornos) Talleres de Comunicación, a collective exhibition of 25 art instructors who redefined the models of independent editing and held muralist workshops. For 10 years, H2O directed the creation of more than 500 small communities and communication groups, and the creation of approximately 1,100 collective murals across Mexico. Ehrenberg's interest in socio-cultural aspects of art and his participation in the community converted him into a public figure in the 80s. While he kept exhibiting his work at individual and collective exhibitions, at the same time he ran unsuccessfully as candidate for the municipal and federal elections in 1982 for PSUM (Partido Socialista Unificado de Mexico). Three years later, due to the earthquake of 1985, Ehrenberg got involved in the protection and reconstruction of the legendary Tepito neighborhood against real estate speculation. When

a year later another earthquake destroyed the neighborhood San Jacinto in the city of San Salvador, Ehrenberg coordinated the reconstruction program "Barrio a Barrio", which the city implemented to promote self-help based on his experience in Tepito. For his efforts and representing both neighborhoods, he was awarded the "Roque Dalton del Consejo de Cooperación con la Cultura y la Ciencia en El Salvador (CONCISES)" medal in 1987. In 1984 Ehrenberg travelled to the Art Institute of Chicago as an invited professor, where he held a seminar in Art and Politics as well as other courses in history of Art. He returned in 1998 to hold the seminar again, adding a new one: "Making Things Visible: The Artist as Activist". Since the mid 70s, one of his most important themes has been death, as it manifest itself in Mexico, where the traditions of the original villages synchretize with Christianity, brought by the Spanish. Since then, Ehrenberg celebrates "Dia de los Muertos" with paintings and drawings or installations/ non traditional offerings. In a similar fashion, he frequently investigated other aspects of the cultural clash of his work. In autumn of 1990, invited as resident artist of Nexus Press, Atlanta, he published the "Codex Areoscriptus Ehrenbergensis", an anthology of his iconographic heritage of patterns, and in October of the same year he created the big exterior installation "Light Up our Border – I", commissioned by Archer Huntington Gallery of University of Texas, Austin. A month later he presents "Light up our Border – II" at Bridge for Contemporary Art, in El Paso, Texas. Both installations, together with "Curtain Call", form part of the installation presented at INSITE 94 (San Diego/Tijuana), which deals with the deep and precarious relationship between USA and Mexico. In 1993 he presented "Preterito Imperfecto", an ambitious demonstration which includes a variety of genres, at Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico City. It alludes to the 5th century of the discovery of the American continent, and the encounter of three continents: America, Europe and Africa. Since the 90s until today Ehrenberg continues active as an artist as well as an essayist specialized in theoretical and contemporary culture. Between 2001 and 2006 he was added cultural attache of Mexico in Brazil. In 2008 "Manchuria-vision periferica" was inaugurated, a first retrospective of his work which was presented at "Museo de Arte Moderno de la Cuidad de Mexico", travelling afterwards to MOLAA (Los Angeles, May 2010) and to "Pinacoteca doe Estado de Sao Paulo" (September 2010). In 2014 Ehrenberg moved to Mexico permanently.

External links

• Article written by Joaquín R. del Paso
• Interview for the newspaper "La Jornada"
• Access to his curriculum (education and exhibitions)
• Philosophy of art