What appears as fok or “primitive”  in the handling of Magdalena Suarez Frimkess’s exceptional sculpture is illusory. Instead, what the work relies on is a consistent production of cultural comic and cartoon icons ad infinitum, their forms shaped not by Frimkess’s vision of a new form but by the replication (at volume) of these cultural cartoons, which morph and stretch over time since their inception in the American Twentieth Century. It should not be lost on anybody that when I mention the word primitive, I am suggesting a style of production, not a cultural assessment. This is to indicate that I do not understand the word resolutely, primitive as anything but a way of reading what would otherwise be ascribed to as folk, our outsider (not of the institution, but self-taught) art in orientation.

Suarez Frimkess’s sculptures, drawings, paintings, and collaborations with her late husband, Michael (also a member of the California Clay Movement), are remarkable studies of forms, ranging from Minnie Mouse to Popeye. Her assistance with American cartoons is an interesting reference to the entire American experiment of the Twentieth Century, its export of entertainment as propaganda, and its creation of childish icons that many people across the globe have grown up with, cherished, and idolized, much like indigenous Kachina dolls, yet here, the icons are loaded with an imperial presence, lost clay sculptures reminiscent of neolithic toys at the dawn of what we consider humanity. Growing up in Venezuela before moving to Chile and finally to America, Suarez Frimkess would have seen these cartoons in exported pulp, stapled with a metal pitchfork as a sign of entertainment, but also of a goal, perhaps. In the same way that American imperialism exported Coca-Cola and chewing gum to Japan after the atomic bomb, these cultural signifiers offered some strange hope in believing that the dream of empire or betterment was tangible. To suggest that Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, or Felix the Cat are propaganda is legitimate, but it is not necessarily the driving force behind Suarez Frimkess’s creations.

Studying painting and sculpture, Suarez Frimkess is a very technically accomplished artist. To see her pots, vessels, and other forms of ceramics, in collaboration with her husband, betrays the notion that these oddly lovable, folk-like sculptures are devoid of talent or skill, and are part of their charm. There is a decision here to keep the early adaptations of these icons in practice. Instead of the later streamlined versions of Fleix, or Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Suarez Frimkess adapts these earlier forms and translates them into glaze and clay. Like Georg Baselitz, a painter known for repetition and exactitude, Suarez Frimkess creates many of these sculptures repeatedly and admits that there are many floating out in the world. This is the charm I mention: an artist trained and skilled in the production of art looks at these forms and emulates not their highest point of aesthetic perfection, but rather their crude evolution of form for her practice.

Of course, the potential for a dialogue regarding Greek art, Folk Art, and the American Empire is not a surprise, but what makes these sculptures great is their flexibility and familiarity. That they feel craft-like, incomplete, and naive is a subtle play on their value to be understood fairly universally in the 21st century as indicators, signifiers, and symbols of the world’s advanced state of growth and evolution. This is the same way I feel toward Grayson Perry and Dieter Roth’s work. To be cynical about Suarez Frimkess’s work is a loss to their potential to be relatable. This is an excellent catalogue of her work, and it remains flexible, suggesting an affinity to archaeological books that catalog the treasures of a different (if imagined) timeline—highly recommended.

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess

ida joon & MACK