Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles

Exhibition

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles from August 18, 2024 – January 5, 2025. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents this first-ever museum survey of the Venezuelan-born, L.A.-based artist's prolific career.

About the Exhibition

Spanning over five decades, the exhibition explores ceramics, paintings, and drawings, including an important selection of works made collaboratively with her husband, Michael Frimkess, and numerous works never-before shown in public. With insights into the artist's fascination with illustrations from art books, popular media, animation, autobiography, and the comedy of everyday life, The Finest Disregard celebrates the inventiveness of Suarez Frimkess's practice, securing her position in the recognized, longstanding tradition of artists working with ceramics in California.

Exhibition Highlights

• Cartoon figurines: Figurines of cartoon characters such as Popeye, Olive Oyl, Donald Duck, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Betty Boop, Felix the Cat, and Porky Pig made from the late 1970s onward.
• Drawing and writing: Daily drawings on paper concerned almost exclusively with line, and a series from around 2015 that blurs the boundary between writing and drawing.
• Technique and forms: Hand-built, irregular vessels and objects including cups, teapots, jars, plates, bowls, bottles, carafes, pitchers, mirrors, tiles, and boxes.
• Collaboration with Michael Frimkess: Works produced collaboratively with her husband, featuring the tension between their differing aesthetic approaches.

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue co-published by LACMA and DelMonico Books/D.A.P., featuring essays by scholars and artists including curator José Luis Blondet, Luz Carabaño, Carribean Fragoza, Karin Gulbran, Shio Kusaka, Jenni Sorkin, Ricky Swallow, and Jonas Wood.

About the Artist

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess (b. 1929 in Maturín, Venezuela) lives and works in Venice, California. In the 1940s, she studied painting at Artes Plásticas, Caracas, Venezuela, and moved in 1949 to study sculpture at the Catholic University.