July 16 -September 28, 08
This joint exhibition by two personalities of the surrealist movement, Susana Wald and Ludwig Zeller, features a selection from their long creative career as surrealist artists.
The exhibition contains works by both artists and a selection of joint artworks, a small example of the two artists commitment to intellectual collaboration during many years, which continues today. The artists have been working together since the early sixties, with Susana Wald adding drawings and colour to Zellers collages, under the general title Mirages.
The exhibition also includes a series of works belonging to the Granell Foundation collection, especially a small group of artworks from 1974, made to mark the 50th anniversary of the Surrealist Manifesto.
The Chilean Ludwig Zeller, a plastic artist, publisher and poet, stands out in the technique of the collage. His works follow two main tendencies that are combined on some occasions: the classic collage, in black and white, and those created with modern, cut-off, recombined and re-elaborated materials. In relation to the so-called classic collage, based on engravings from before 1880, printed in line, before the invention of photo-engraving, Edouard Jaguer an ideologist of the Phases international surrealist movement claims that Zellers contribution to this type of collage has been exceptional. On display in the Granell Foundation are works featuring a variety of formats and techniques. Although black-and-white collages make up the majority, there are also collages made from contemporary, colour-printed materials. The exhibition also features a visual poem from 1986, made for that years Venice Biennial, called Cuerpo Alquímico. In the artwork, the artist projects collages onto the nude body of a young woman, which are transformed by the prism of the models gentle and slow movement.
The Granell Foundation shows us a selection of recent work by the plastic artist Susana Wald, a Canadian born in Budapest, who currently has her atelier in the Mexican locality of Oaxaca along with Ludwig Zeller. The selection of works made for the Granell Foundation features a series of paintings that monumentalise the original form of the egg. This extensive series of paintings, made between 1999 and 2004, is based, according to the artist, on the reiterated apparition of ovoid forms that arise in the intermediate state between dreaming and wakefulness. These emerge and gradually appear, by the re-elaboration of what she remembers of the images produced in this state, in her work until they make up their own universe, rich in nuances. Apart from being a renowned plastic artist, Susana Wald has also carried out important work as a publisher, along with Ludwig Zeller, especially in relation to two publishing companies: Casa de la Luna and Oasis. The latter, Oasis Publications, published several of Eugenio Granells books, as well as a collection of poems dedicated to the Galician artist entitled La invención del dado, in 1982; the poems were written by Ludwig Zeller and illustrated by Susana Wald. Both artists became friends of Eugenio Granell in the mid-seventies, when the three of them had been members of the Phases international surrealism movement for years.
Susana Wald
Born in 1937, in Budapest, Hungary.
She has lived in Mexico since 1994.
She has worked on her visual art in Argentina, Chile and Canada; she currently works in her studio in Santo Andrés Huaygapan, in the surroundings of the city of Oaxaca. She has held individual exhibitions in Germany, Belgium, Canada, Chile, USA, France, Iceland, Mexico and Venezuela.
She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, the most outstanding of which include the XLII Venice Biennial, in 1986, and the IBEROAMÉRICA PINTA travelling exhibition, organised by UNESCO, which visited 18 countries from 1997 to 2000. Her work appears in: Public collections in Canada, Spain, Israel and Mexico. Private collections in Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Spain, USA, France, Italy, Iceland, Mexico, Venezuela.
Ludwig Zeller
He was born in 1927 in Río Gaba, a settlement in the interior of the Atacama desert.
He worked for Chiles Ministry of Education during 16 years. He lived in Toronto (Ontario, Canada) from 1971 to 1992, and has since lived in Oaxaca (Mexico).
He has run several magazines, established two publishing companies and his work includes around fifty poetry books, a novel, some essays and five books of collages.
He has presented more than forty individual exhibitions in different countries (Chile, Argentina, Canada, United States, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Iceland, Belgium, Venezuela and Mexico) and participated actively in surrealism. Most of his work has been translated into English, French, German and other languages.
His most important publications are Mujer en sueño, 1975; Cuando el animal de fondo sube, la cabeza estalla, 1976; In the Country of the Antipodes, 1979; Ludwig Zeller, la Celebration, 1987; Salvar la poesía, quemar las naves, 1988; ZELLER SUEÑO LIBRE, 1991; Río Gaba, estación de los sueños, 1994; Los Engranajes del encantamiento, 1996. We can also add El enemigo de México, 2003, a book made up of 100 poems on the subject.
He can be contacted at the following e-mail address: waldzeller@terra.com.mx
