“I’m a survivor,” says Magdalena Suarez Frimkess. “Since I was a child, that’s been the definition of my life. Whatever I have to do, I do it. I’m still alive at 95.” For decades, this spirited nonagenarian toiled in relative obscurity in the Venice studio she shared with her husband and long-time collaborator, the classically trained ceramicist Michael Frimkess, 89. But for the past decade, Venezuelan-born Suarez Frimkess has also thrived.
In 2014, she and her husband were part of the Hammer Museum’s influential Made in LA Biennial, and this month Suarez Frimkess’s unusual ceramic sculptures – 178 in all – are on display in The finest disregardher long-overdue retrospective at LACMA (August 18-January 5), curated by Jose Luis Blondet. Her works feature figures from her family, art history, her upbringing, and scenes with some of her favorite pop icons: Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Wonder Woman, Santa Claus, Betty Boop, Olive Oyl, and the satirical Chilean cartoon character Condorito.
“Don’t you think it’s about time?” Suarez Frimkess asks with an expressive laugh. “I’m still in shock in some ways, but I think I deserve it.” She’s not the only one. For years, the couple’s ceramics were the LA art world’s best-kept secret. “We had to make a living. (My husband) made the pots and I decorated them and we had sales (in the studio),” she recalls. What used to bring $25 or $50 can now fetch five figures at auction, and her collectors include everyone from Cindy Sherman to LA power-art couple Shio Kusaka and Jonas Wood, who have donated several works to LACMA. Although Suarez Frimkess is considered a grande dame by many LA ceramic artists, she doesn’t feel connected to any artistic community, nor does she believe LA influences her work, despite living in the city for 60 years. Her narrative is more like a Pablo Neruda poem, executed in rough-hewn clay and painted with glaze, and dating back to her childhood.
An untitled work from 2013 that is one of the pieces in Magdalena Suarez Frimkess’ retrospective at LACMA
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Untitled, 2013, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka, © Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
Suarez Frimkess was born in Maturín and then moved to Caracas where her mother could be treated for tuberculosis. After her mother died, she says, “my father didn’t know what to do with me.” He sent her to a Catholic orphanage where the nuns introduced her to painting. At 14, she studied printmaking and painting at Venezuela’s best art school. At 18, she moved to Chile with her partner, an older man, and raised two children in the 1950s while studying art. 1962 Art in America She was called “Chile’s bravest sculptor” for creating sculptures with the body, using everything from plaster to pantyhose. That year, Suarez Frimkess made the difficult decision to leave her family to pursue a career in New York, where she had met Frimkess at a residency program. Two years later, they moved to LA.
The 2015 piece fish plate
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Fish Plate, 2015, glazed earthenware, 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches (19.1 x 19.1 cm), ©Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, photo by Ruben Diaz, courtesy of Mark Grotjahn.
Although many “great works” (as she calls them) sold out of the studio early on, masterpieces are on display at LACMA, including tables, plates, bowls and glasses filled with her characters. The artist says of her cartoonish, if charismatic, inspirations: “They help me survive.”
The work “Mickey Mouse Circus Glass with Minnie Mouse Knob” from 2008.
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Mickey Mouse Circus Jar with Minnie Mouse Finial, 2008, Collection of Karin Gulbran, © Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
This story first appeared in the August 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
