Mathias Goeritz

Painter and sculptor Mathias Goeritz (1915–90) studied arts and crafts, art history and philosophy in interwar Berlin before arriving in Guadalajara in 1949, after stints in Spain and North Africa. It was in Mexico, at the founding of his El Eco Experimental Museum in Mexico City, that Goeritz put forward his principle of "emotional architecture," which would become a driving force of his subsequent work and an important concept in the development of modern art in postwar Latin America—a theory of architecture, objects and spaces that would stir the emotions rather than resting on bland functionalism and austere aestheticism. Goeritz Guide, the first guide to Goeritz’s work, explores Goeritz’s art through an itinerary of 41 of his public works in Mexico, including monumental sculptures, stained glass windows and murals in Guadalajara, Cuernavaca, Monterrey, Toluca, Acapulco, Mérida and three zones of Mexico City.