Barry Wolfryd

Barry Wolfryd was born in Los Angeles, California, but has directed most of his artis- tic career in Mexico, where he has lived for the past 40 years. Wolfryd began his artistic stu- dies in 1972 at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, Connecticut in United States. At the age of 22, he moved to Mexico, arriving in Cholula, Puebla and beginning his studies at the University of the Americas. In 1975, he enrolled at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. In 1982, he studied at the Chicago Art Institute and in 1984 at the National Institute for the Arts in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

The influences of the music of the 1960’s, from Bob Dylan to Frank Zappa to the New York art scene, inspired Wolfryd’s early creative experimentations. In 1998, he founded the experimental space Out Gallery. Along with the projects Salon dés Aztecas, La Zona and La Quiñonera, Wolfryd helped create one of the most dynamic and vibrant art scenes in the world. Wolfryd’s recent work shows his taste for uniting cultural artifacts-goods-idols that have displaced traditional icons (religious, folkloric or everyday) and values in «mature» Mexico. Wolfryd’s work is developed in a neo-pop aesthetic. But unlike classic pop, the ideas contained in Wolfryd’s images are distinguished by their strong charge of black humor, irony and social criticism. The artist reflects the empty international idealisms, and laments the disappearance of a particularly unique and colorful country, invaded by new multinational aesthetics and values. Wolfryd’s ability to live in two cultures, his understanding of symbols and icons, gives him the visual tools to critique and look intensely at where he comes from and where he lives.

​