Kati Horna and her friends

Kati Horna and her friends Kati Horna and Her Friends brings together photographs that tell the stories and relationships within Kati Horna’s close circle, including artists Sofía Bassi, Leonora Carrington, Mathias Goeritz, and Remedios Varo. The exhibition focuses on portraiture and fantastical photographic narratives, documenting the community of Surrealists and architects who surrounded Horna throughout her life, as well as those whose influence continues to resonate with artists today. The exhibition includes drawings and paintings by her friends Alice Rahon, Bridget Tichenor, and Remedios Varo, alongside works by Gunther Gerzso and Mathias Goeritz, many of whom appear within Horna’s portraits. Also photographed are artists Leonora Carrington and Pedro Friedeberg, as well as the patron Edward James, figures who played important roles in the artistic and architectural landscape of mid-twentieth-century Mexico.

 

Horna’s photographs capture moments of friendship, collaboration, and shared imagination. Through staged scenes, experimental compositions, and poetic visual storytelling, her images offer glimpses into a creative community that shaped the cultural landscape of twentieth-century Mexico. Portraits and photographic sequences reveal playful, enigmatic, and sometimes theatrical relationships between artists, where daily life often merged with surrealist invention. Many of Horna’s friendships led to collaborations and public interventions within the context of the so-called “Generación de la Ruptura” (Breakaway Generation), which challenged the dominance of the Mexican muralist tradition. Among the most notable are Horna’s collaboration with the surrealist journal S.NOB and her involvement with the artist collective Los Hartos.