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Mathias Goeritz [edited by Lily Kassner], 2014

 Item
Identifier: CC-59935-10002990

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Scope and Contents

This book is one of 1000 copies in English, another 1000 copies were printed in Spanish. Wikipedia: Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner (1915-1990) was born in Danzig, Germany (now in Poland) and died in Mexico City). After spending much of the 1940s in North Africa and Spain, Goeritz and his wife, photographer Marianne Gast, immigrated to Mexico in 1949. Some books state that he was Jewish, others Protestant.In Mexico, he did commisions for churces and synagogues. Mathias Goeritz spent his childhood in Berlin. Goeritz received a doctorate in art history from Berlin's Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universitat, now known as the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1940. During the course of his studies, Goeritz also trained as an artist at the Kunstgewerbe- und Handwerkerschule Berlin-Charlottenberg (Berlin-Charlottenberg School of Arts and Crafts), where he studied drawing with German artists Max Kaus and Hans Orlowski. Upon completion of his doctorate, Goeritz worked at Berlin's Nationalgalerie (National Gallery), now the Alte Nationalgalerie, under the supervision of nineteenth-century art specialist Paul Ortwin Rave. In early 1941, in the midst of the Second World War, Goeritz left Germany, settling first in Tetuan, Morocco. He and photographer Marianne Gast married in 1942, and the couple settled in Granada, Spain just after the war ended in 1945.Goeritz's career as a professional artist began with his first solo exhibition at the Librería-Galería Clan in Madrid in June 1946 under the pseudonym "Ma-Go". The Goeritzs relocated to Madrid in 1947.In the summer of 1948, Goeritz traveled to visit the prehistoric paintings of the Cave of Altamira in the north of Spain and it was then that Goeritz proposed the founding of an Escuela de Altamira (Altamira School), an association of artists and writers who would meet annually near the Cave, in 1948. The Escuela de Altamira would ultimately hold two meetings, in 1949 and 1950.Through the intervention of Mexican architect Ignacio Díaz Morales, Goeritz was offered a job teaching art history to the students of the newly founded Escuela de Arquitectura in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1949. In 1953 he first presented his "Manifiesto de la Arquitectura Emocional" (Emotional Architecture Manifesto) at the pre-inauguration of the Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City, which he designed in 1952-53. Goeritz also collaborated with Luis Barragan to make monumental abstract sculptures in reinforced concrete during the 1950s, including El animal del Pedregal(The Animal of the Pedregal, 1951) and the Torres de la Ciudad Satelite (Towers of Satellite City, 1957).Mathias Goeritz exhibited widely in Mexico and beyond throughout his life, and had a significant influence on younger Mexican artists such as Helen Escobedo and Pedro Friedeberg. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates

  • Creation: 2014

Creator

Extent

0 See container summary (1 hard cover book (248 pages) in dust jacket) ; 31.2 x 23 x 2.6 cm

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Physical Location

alpha shelf

Custodial History

The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, gift from Ruth and Marvin A. Sackner and the Sackner Family Partnership.

General

Published: Mexico City, Mexico : Lily Kassner. Nationality of creator: German-Mexican. General: 1000 copies of 2000 total copies. General: Added by: MARVIN; updated by: MARVIN.

Repository Details

Part of the The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry Repository

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