In the early 1950s, the el Pedregal de San Angel Subdivision, located south of Mexico City, became a symbol of modern architecture in the country. The person in charge of conceiving the residential complex, located on a huge terrain of volcanic rock, was architect Luis Barragan, who invited artist Mathias Goeritz to make the model of a sculpture that was to be located in the main entrance of the development. Among the proposals, the selected work was The Animal of el Pedregal, which was to be made in concrete.
According to the art historian Lily Kassner, Goeritz had known Barragan since his arrival in Mexico in 1949 during his age through the country's capital on his way to Guadalajara, where he had been invited to settle to teach. It was in this period, in dialogue with the ideas of the Spanish artist Angel Ferrant and after learning to work directly with wood with wood carver Romualdo de la Cruz, that the artist began his path in the sculptural field.
The imaginaries that the artist began to explore in his sculptural practice intersect Pre-Columbian references and, above all, the ethical and aesthetic discussions of the Cold War environment. As curator David Miranda points out, Goeritz began a series of works carved in wood where he developed “his own iconography with various sculptures of animals and humanoids that gave an of a post-war spirit stemming from the horrors of Nazi and the effects of the Franco regime.”[1] On the other hand, regarding the different figures represented at the time, Kassner attributes his interest in the serpent to the artist's inspiring visits to Teotihuacan and Tenayuca,[2] as well as to the Pedregal fauna, which was deeply symbolic in the Pre-Columbian epoch.[3]
In a compendium edited by Lily Kassner, it is possible to follow a dozen variations on the theme of the animal, the monster and the serpent.[4] In the formal exploration of these representations, which the artist extended during the first half of the decade, they were first of an organic nature (Little Monster, 1950), although later they would gradually fragment (The Three-Piece Animal, 1951) and acquire more expressive forms (The Wounded Animal, 1954/1955). It should be noted that the Serpiente de El Eco (1953) was also developed at the same time; this one in the form of a zigzag, or geometric-abstract type which, according to the historian Francisco Reyes Palma, under the name of 'Ataque', referred to the Cold War and would have been at least a decade ahead of Minimalist sculpture.
In this work from the Amparo Museum collection, the head with the open muzzle of the animal can be distinguished; however, the rest of the body has different volumes and impossible angles. Due to its correspondence with other works of the period, such as the El Eco Experimental Museum (1952-1953), also conceived as a sculpture and with angles of all kinds, it is pertinent to refer to the influence of German Expressionism that the artist himself recognized in his work and that resulted in a disturbing alteration of forms.
CGV- October, 2020.
References
Eder, Rita, “Dos aspectos de la obra de arte total: experimentación y performatividad," in Rita Eder (coordinator), Desafío a la estabilidad. Procesos artíisticos en Mexico 1952-1967, UNAM/Turner, Mexico, 2014.
Jácome, Cristobal, “Jardines del Pedregal de San Ángel,” in Rita Eder (coordinator), Desafio a la estabilidad. Procesos artíisticos en México 1952-1967, UNAM/Turner, Mexico, 2014.
Kassner, Lily, Mathias Goeritz. Obra 1915-1990, UNAM-Conaculta/INBA, Mexico, 1998.
Daniel Garza Usabiaga, “Mathias Goeritz”, in revista Rufino No. 6, July 2013, pp. 68-74. https://fdocuments.mx/document/rufino-6-56f0bf2958a3c.html
Exposición El animal herido, curated by David Miranda, October 17, 2019 – February 9, 2020, Museo Experimental El Eco:
https://eleco.unam.mx/expo/el-animal-herido/
http://www.fomentoculturalbanamex.org/goeritz/exposicion/
http://www.fomentoculturalbanamex.org/goeritz/ubicaciones/el-animal-del-pedregal/
http://www.fomentoculturalbanamex.org/goeritz/exposicion/
https://local.mx/ciudad-de-mexico/arquitectura/animal-del-pedregal-goeritz/
https://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2016/954745.html
[1] This concept is part of the expository essay El animal herido, organized by David Miranda (Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City, October, 2019 - February, 2020) as a contemporary dialogue with the eponymous sculpture from 1951. https://eleco.unam.mx/expo/el-animal-herido/
[2] Reyna Paz Avendaño, “Escultura El animal del Pedregal de Goeritz, ‘en absoluto abandono’”, Crónica, November 4, 2016: https://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2016/954745.html
[3] Eduardo Merlo, “Los espacios del Espacio. ‘Hueycoatetl in Tezontepec’ (Las grandes serpientes en el Pedregal)”, in Lily Kassner (ed), El espacio escultorico, Direccion General de Publicaciones y Fomento Editorial / UNAM, Mexico, 2009, pp. 73-93.
[4] Lily Kassner, Mathias Goeritz. Obra 1915-1990, INBA/Conaculta, 1998. Pp. 85-87.
