TALKS
You are invited to a series of talks on the life and work of the German painter. In the first talk, Eduardo Vázquez Martín, director of Colegio de San Ildefonso, and Gertrudis Zenzes, Ernst Saemisch’s widow and president of the association named after him, will discuss the artist’s life, they will share personal experiences, historical moments the painter lived through, reflections on his work, his influences and art in Germany and Mexico.
Later, in February, a second talk will feature two experts on Saemisch’s work, Fernando Gálvez and Carlos Blas Galindo. They will explore the aesthetics and creative processes of Ernst Saemisch, analyzing abstraction and musicality in his paintings.
On March 15, María Minera will talk about artistic avant-gardes and their connection to Saemisch’s work. In April, a series of guided tours will be led by Eugenio Caballero, the exhibition’s curator, who will share his personal experience with Saemisch’s painting and the process of creating the exhibition.
In May, the talk series will conclude with Erik Velásquez García, an expert on Mayan culture, who will discuss the influence of pre-Hispanic art on Saemisch’s work.
TALK
Saturday, January 25, 2025. 13:00 hrs.
• Subject: The life and work of Ernst Saemisch
• Ernst Saemisch in Gertrudis Zenzes’ memory. A dialog with Eduardo Vázquez
• Speakers: Eduardo Vázquez Martín and Gertrudis Zenzes
• Free entry / Limited capacity
TALK
Saturday, February 22, 2025. 13:00 hrs.
• Subject: Musicality, Bauhaus and Expressionism in the work of Ernst Saemisch
• Reflections on the aesthetics and creative processes in the work of Ernst Saemisch
• Speakers: Fernando Gálvez- Formal abstraction of the reality process, Saemisch’s serial work Carlos Blas Galindo- Musicality in the work of Ernst Saemisch.
• The speakers will explore two different perspectives on Saemisch’s work. Doctor Carlos Blas Galindo will analyze how Ernst Saemisch translated musicality into his visual art. This theme was significant during his studies at the Bauhaus, where figures like Kandinsky emphasized musicality incorporating musical terms into Concerning the spiritual in art; similarly Paul Klee, a violinist often played music for his students encouraging them to translate musical notes into chromatic tones and shapes. Carlos Blas Galindo will explain how Saemisch integrated his philosophy into his artistic practice.
Fernando Gálvez explains that the work in series is a way to poetically capture the subject, advancing in each image toward a more abstract position.The operation is repeated series after series, starting with a realistic image of a landscape, portrait or object, and progressing until reaching a completely abstract image, where colors, shapes and composition are poeticized. This process follows an original guide, which gradually disappears in the later works. Again, this process seems to recover the path Kandinsky took until the invention of abstract art, but Saemisch follows this route in a condensed way, with each series consisting of 5, 10, or 15 images.
After presenting their ideas, Carlos Blas Galindo and Fernando Gálvez will discuss Saemisch’s contributions, his influences, his time, and his life in Mexico.
• Free entry / Limitd capacity
TALK
Saturday, March 15, 2025. 13:00 hrs.
• Subject: Artistic avant-garde
• Art and Vanguard
• Speaker: María Minera
It has been said that few periods in art history have been as intense and innovative as the first two decades of the 20th century. During those years, painting, had remained within a more or less familiar realm of exploration for nearly two centuries, underwent such a profound revision that it emerged as an unrecognizable space, one from which some of the most radical and beautiful works in history were produced, such as a canvas that is nothing more than a black square on a white background. In this extraordinary cultural crucible, Ernst Saemisch grew and developed as an artist, and his work reveals a rich dialogue with his contemporaries, particularly those of German Expressionism. Thus, in this lecture, we will discuss the experimental spirit that defined the early years of the past century, focusing on key works and artists whose explorations forever transformed the way we understood and created art.
• Free entry / Limited capacity
GUIDE VISIT WITH EUGENIO CABALLERO
Saturday, April 19 and Sunday, April 20, 2025. 11:30 and 13:00 hrs.
Acompáñanos en este recorrido con Eugenio Caballero, curador de la exposición y diseñador de producción cinematográfica, para profundizar en la vida y obra de Ernst Saemisch. Ven y conversa con el curador sobre el acercamiento a la obra y el proceso de selección de las 220 obras que componen la exposición.
• Free entry / Limited capacity
TALK
Saturday, May 3, 2025. 13:00 hrs.
• Subject: Ernst Saemisch and the connection between his works and the pre- Hispanic world
• Ernst Saemisch and the Pre-Hispanic World
• Speaker: Erik Velásquez
One of the themes studied in the pictorial work of Ernst Saemisch is the serpent as a symbol of the unknown, mysterious, and profound forces of nature, a reflection of the environment he encountered, loved, and appreciated in Mexico. It is also the epiphany of an untamable cosmogonic and cosmological power that he perceived in the ancestral cultures of the country.
These ideas will be explored in the conference, along with others of a more subtle nature, less known, and perhaps underlying or buried in the painter’s consciousness: the importance of the heart as a creative animic center, the duality between red and black, and the vital action of movement, which serves as the driving force of cosmic functioning. As an epilogue, we will touch on the historical roots of the anthroponym Canek, name he gave to his beloved son.
• Free entry
JUEVES 8 DE MAYO DE 2025, 19:00 HORAS.
El Colegio de San Ildefonso y la Asociación Ernst Saemisch presentan el catálogo de la exposición “La naturaleza íntima de la vida. Ernst Saemisch (1902-1984)”, la muestra más completa que se haya realizado en México sobre el pintor alemán, y ahora podrás llevar su arte a casa.
El catálogo reúne más de 220 obras, entre bocetos, dibujos y pinturas, realizadas entre 1920 y 1984, tanto en Europa como en México.
Ven y acompáñanos el próximo jueves 8 de mayo, a las 19:00 horas.
Contaremos con la participación de Eugenio Caballero, curador de la exposición; Gertrudis Zenzes y Canek Saemisch, viuda e hijo del pintor; Fernando Gálvez, escritor, periodista y crítico de arte; y Carmen Tostado y Eduardo Vázquez Martín, Coordinadora de Exposiciones y Coordinador Ejecutivo del Colegio de San Ildefonso, respectivamente.
