Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1943 Tlacopac, Mexico City, Mexico

Died: 2017 Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

Year of Migration to the UK: 1968

Other name/s: Montenegro

Biography

Multimedia conceptual artist, editor, writer, publisher, diplomat, activist, and politician, Felipe Ehrenberg was born of Jewish heritage in Tlacopac, Mexico City, Mexico on 27 June 1943. Working initially as an editor, he transitioned to the visual arts under the mentorship of prominent figures in the Mexican art scene, including: José Chávez Morado (muralist), Feliciano Béjar (painter and sculptor), and Mathias Goeritz (artist). By 1968, he had gained international attention and represented Mexico at the Salón Codex de Pintura Latinoamericana in Buenos Aires, Argentina and secured the Premio Femirama de pintura award. The same year saw the military suppression of a student protest ahead of the Olympics, resulting in approximately 300 deaths. Deeply affected and facing potential imprisonment, Ehrenberg sought refuge in England and relocated with his family. During his years in self-exile in the UK, Ehrenberg played a crucial role in introducing British artists to global anti-art techniques.

The Ehrenbergs first settled in London in 1968, then moved to Devon in 1971, living together with David Mayor (artist and art critic) and other artists in an historic farmhouse. Along with his wife, Martha Hellion (architect), and Mayor, Ehrenberg co-founded the independent Beau Geste Press (BGP), active from 1970–6. This experimental publishing house aimed to operate outside the commercial art sphere, challenging the authority of established art institutions and countering mainstream consumerism and politics by providing a platform for subversive and experimental artists, particularly those affiliated with the Fluxus movement and the neo-Dada legacy. The BGP slogan was: ‘art as intervention – artist as citizen’. During one BGP event, the group travelled from London to Edinburgh by train, carrying a Gestetner printer. They invited fellow passengers to contribute to a magazine, and by arrival, each had a printed copy. Ehrenberg saw this as promoting a collaborative community of duplicators, mirroring Walter Benjamin’s iconic concept of mechanical art reproduction. Via BGP, Ehrenberg also actively engaged with the international mail art movement.

For the 1970 Salon in Mexico, Ehrenberg submitted a 200-piece conceptual jigsaw puzzle sent from London, titled Upwards and Onwards…Whether You Like it or Not. The jigsaw's assembly process highlighted Ehrenberg's emphasis on collaborative art, and its uncertain delivery and text mirrored the nation’s turbulent political climate. Reflecting on his experiences across Mexico and the UK, he remarked: ‘[…] as a struggling artist in tune with both the political upheavals tearing Latin American countries apart, the shifting paradigms in the arts, and at the same time, an exile having to care for a family of four; all this changed radically when I returned to Mexico in 1974. In that context, all the ideas and experiences I had developed in Europe took on radically different meanings and applications.’ (Ehrenberg quoted in Gilbert, 2010). Ehrenberg’s UK journey was punctuated with exhibitions at various venues nationwide. During his UK stay, he also orchestrated multiple happenings, events, and produced a 16mm film, La Poubelle: It’s a Kind of Disease, documenting the mounting waste which accumulated during the refuse workers’ strike in 1970. Throughout his time in the UK, Ehrenberg was a persistent cultural activist who actively advocated for avant-garde art forms and consistently challenged prevailing art narratives. While still in the UK in 1973, he made a cigar box sculpture with piano keys titled Silent Sound Box and was part of a group activity, Polygonal Workshop. After returning to Mexico in 1973, Ehrenberg remained connected to the UK scene. In 2009, he undertook an artist's residency at the University of Essex in collaboration with Tate. Here, he produced Xocoyotzin, The Penultimate, a performance reflecting on the fate of Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, the Aztec Empire's Emperor, in the context of national memory. The death of Xocoyotzin, instigated by Spanish Conquistadors, signalled the onset of the colonisation of modern-day Mexico.

With a career spanning over 50 years, Ehrenberg exhibited extensively in Mexico, the UK, and internationally. He promoted mail art, mixed art with activism, was associated with the Fluxus movement, pioneered mimeography (a neographical technique), and declared himself a neologist to emphasise the experimental nature of his artistic practice. He actively engaged in socio-political causes, such as post-earthquake reconstruction in Mexico. Although he dabbled in politics, his 1982 campaign under the PSUM (Partido Socialista Unificado de México) banner was unsuccessful. Later, he served as a cultural attaché to Brazil from 2001–6. Felipe Ehrenberg died in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico on 15 May 2017, aged 73. In the UK public domain, the Tate Archive and British Library preserve BGP publications material, correspondence, and mail art related to Ehrenberg, and Tate Images features one of his works.

Related books

Erica Segre, Transtexuality and the Precarious Materials of Dissent (1973): Radicalism in Cecilia Vicuña, Felipe Ehrenberg and the Beau Geste Press (1970–1976), Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2020, pp. 267-284
Carmen Juliá, ‘Mapping the City: Felipe Ehrenberg in London, 1968–71’, in Jo Applin, Catherine Spencer and Amy Tobin, eds., London Art Worlds: Mobile, Contingent, and Ephemeral Networks, 1960–1980, (ebook: Penn State University Press, 2018), pp. 55-76
Paulo Moreira, ‘The Delicate Crime of Beto Brant and Felipe Ehrenberg’, in Literary and Cultural Relations between Brazil and Mexico. Literatures of the Americas, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 143-58
Karen Benezra, 'Introduction to Felipe Ehrenberg's “In Search of a Model for Life”', ARTMargins, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2012, pp. 120-4
Donna Conwell, ‘Beau Geste Press, Getty Research Journal, Vol. 2, 2010, pp. 183-92.
Zanna Gilbert, 'The Eclectic World of Felipe Ehrenberg', Essex Student Journal, 6 May 2010
Vanessa D. Kam, Felipe Ehrenberg: A Neologist's Art and Archive, (Stanford: Stanford University Libraries, 2004)
Felipe Ehrenberg, ‘The Street and Its Conditions’, in Coco Fuosco, ed., Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 223-5
Felipe Ehrenberg, ‘East and West—The Twain do Meet A Tale of More than Two Worlds’, in Carol Becker, ed., The Subversive Imagination The Artist, Society and Social Responsibility, (New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 130-147
Felipe Ehrenberg, Pussywillow: a Journal of Conditions, (Devon: Beau Gets Press, 1973)
Margaret Randall and Felipe Ehrenberg (illustrations), Water I Slip into at Night, (Mexico City: El Corno Emplumado Press, 1967)

Public collections

Related organisations

Beau Geste Press (Co-founder )
University of Essex (Residency )

Selected exhibitions

Radical/Basic/Actual - 1970s Experiments in Print Media: Felipe Ehrenberg, Latin American Artists and the Beau Geste Press (Devon, 1970-1976), Centre of Latin American Studies in Association with Cambridge University Library and Trinity College, Cambridge (2016)
Curators' Series 6: Friends of London: Artists from Latin America in London from 196X–197X, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2013)
Art for Social Change (group show), Southbank Centre, London (2012)
Other Amigos (group show), Pinta Art Fair, London (2011)
Go Away: Artists and Travel (group show), Royal College of Art Galleries, London (1999)
Fluxbritannica: Aspects of the Fluxus Movement (group show), Tate Modern, London (1994)
Exhibition of Mail Art (group show), Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham (1972)
Silence/Silencio (group show), Camden Arts Centre, London (1971)
Artists' Postcards (group show), Angela Flowers Gallery, London (1971)
Ozjects d'Art (group show), Katie Jessop Gallery, London (1971)
Buy Arts (group show), Sigi Krauss Gallery, London (1970)
III Independent Salon (group show), Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Artes, Mexico City (1970)
Editors in Plastics (1969), The Jewish Museum, New York (1969)
Salón Codex de Pintura Latinoamericana (group show), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires (1968)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Felipe Ehrenberg]