magdalena suarez frimkess

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biography

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess (b. 1929 in Caracas, Venezuela) lives and works in Venice, California. In the 1940s she studied painting at Artes Plasticas, Caracas, Venezuela, moving in 1949 to study sculpture at the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile. In 1963, Suarez Frimkess was awarded a fellowship to study ceramics at the The Clay Art Center in Port Chester, NY, where she met her partner and long-time collaborator, Michael Frimkess. While their collaborative work has achieved acclaim, her first solo exhibition  was not held until 2013, at 84 years-old. Since that debut, she has been undoubtedly known for her unique hand-painted ceramics, recognized for their unique flare in the candid capturing of pop culture iconography, ancient histories, mythologies and intimate memory.
 
Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at White Columns, New York,  Kaufmann repetto in New York and Milan, and South Willard, Los Angeles. Her work was included in Made in LA, the Hammer Museum Biennial, Los Angeles (2014) and the 9th White Columns Annual, White Columns, New York (2015), as well as in group exhibitions at MAK Center, Schindler House, Los Angeles (2017) and Nouveau musée national de Monaco, Monaco (2021). In 2024, her work will be the subject of a career retrospective at LACMA, Los Angeles.
 
Suarez Frimkess’ work is held in the collections of the Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles, the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, among others.

shows at Kaufmann Repetto

the world is my menu, 2022, solo show at kaufmann repetto new york
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, 2017, solo show at kaufmann repetto New York
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, 2016, solo show at kaufmann repetto Milan

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upcoming solo exhibitions

2024
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles

Selected solo exhibitions

2022
The World is my menu, kaufmann repetto, new york
Conversations with Magdalena: The Ceramic Art of Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Art Division Students, Art Division, Los Angeles

2019
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess | 90, South Willard, Los Angeles

2018
Hand Built Ceramics 1958-2018, with Michael Frimkess, South Willard, Los Angeles
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess | New Work, South Willard, Los Angeles

2017
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, kaufmann repetto, New York

2016
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, kaufmann repetto, Milano

2015
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess | New Works, South Willard, Los Angeles

2014
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, White Columns, New York
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, South Willard, Los Angeles

 

Selected group exhibitions

2023
Funk You Too!: Contemporary Ceramics and the Legacy of Funk Art, Museum of Arts and Design, New York

2021
Clay Pop, Deitch Projects, New York

2020
Artifices instables, Stories of ceramics, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco
Vent’anni – Twenty Years, 20th anniversary exhibition, kaufmann repetto, Milan

2019
Siobhan Liddell: Nobody’s World, Gordon Robichaux, New York

2017
How to Read El Pato Pascual: Disney’s Latin America and Latin America’s Disney, MAK Center, Sindler House, Los Angeles

2016
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess & Ben Russell, Michael Jon & Alan, Miami

2015
The Avant-Garde Won’T Give Up: Cobra And Its Legacy, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Kelly Marie Conder, Bella Foster, South Willard, Los Angeles
Looking Back / The 9th White Columns Annual, selected by Cleopatra’s, White Columns, New York

2014
Selected By…, Limoncello, London
Another Cats Show, 356 Mission, Los Angeles
Made In L.A. 2014, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

2013
Grapevine, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
The Cat Show, White Columns, New York
Why is Everything the Same?, Shoot The Lobster, New York

2012
Michael and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, South Willard, Los Angeles New Work/ Vintage, Lacoste Gallery, Concord

2011
Contemporary Ceramics, Danese, New York

1988
Comic Iconoclasm, Cornerhouse, Manchester

 

Selected public collections

Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles
Museum of Arts and Design, New York

Harper’s Bazaar, 2020

mousse, 2020

the New Yorker, 2019

The New York Times, 2017

Modern Mag, 2017

The New Yorker, 2017

L’Officiel, 2017

Artforum, 2016

The New York Times, 2014

The New York times style Magazine, 2014

Oral history interview with Michael and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, 2001 March 8-April 17. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution