Suzi Ferrer (born Susan Nudelman on May 24, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York), also known as Sasha Ferrer, was a visual artist based in San Juan, Puerto Rico from the mid-1960s to 1975. She is known for her transgressive, irreverent,

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

art brut Art Brut are a Berlin-based English and German indie rock band. Their debut album, '' Bang Bang Rock & Roll'', was released on 30 May 2005, with its follow up, ''It's a Bit Complicated'', released on 25 June 2007. Named after French painter Je ...

and

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

work.

Biography

Suzi was the eldest child of Ruth Epstein Susser and Samuel Nudelman, both second generation Austrian, Polish and Belarusian Jewish immigrants. Sasha, as her parents referred to her, graduated from

Jamaica High School Jamaica High School was a four-year public high school in Jamaica, Queens, New York. It was operated by the New York City Department of Education. Jamaica High School was founded as the Union Free School in 1854, and located within a three-story ...

, New York, in 1958, where she excelled and was active in the drama department. Her main interest was acting and she hoped to make a career in television. In the summer of 1958, Nudelman enrolled in the Fine Arts program at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, graduating in 1962. She exhibited her work at the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art (now the Herbert F. Johnson Museum) and the Franklin Gallery, both on the university campus. While at Cornell, she also continued acting, appearing in several campus plays as well as a brief stint on Broadway in ''

The Pajama Game ''The Pajama Game'' is a musical based on the 1953 novel '' 7½ Cents'' by Richard Bissell. The book is by George Abbott and Richard Bissell; the music and lyrics are by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. and dances were staged by Bob Fosse in his c ...

'' in 1959. After graduating, Sasha married Puerto Rican Miguel A. Ferrer, whom she met while he was studying for his MBA at Cornell University. They moved to New York City, visiting galleries and buying

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

. They lived a nomadic life, traveling between New York and San Juan during the first years of their marriage. With their daughter, Ilena (b. 1964), the Ferrers settled permanently in Puerto Rico in the mid-1960s. Their son, Miguel, was born in Puerto Rico in 1969. By the mid-1970s, Ferrer stopped producing art and delved into other creative pursuits. She relocated to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, and as "Sasha Ferrer", she worked as a cultural manager, graphic designer, publicist, and community liaison for the

San Francisco Arts Commission The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cali ...

Neighborhood Arts Program. She offered workshops on television camera techniques and worked as a consultant for the marketing firm Beyl & Boyd. In the late 1970s, she was hired to do a study of the physics and psychology of color to design the corporate image for the

Vancouver Canucks The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference, and play their home games at Rogers Arena. Bruce B ...

hockey team. In late 1979, she began her work in television at Videowest, a San Francisco based alternative theme show where she worked as a producer, writer, actress, and director, meeting her future husband, Stephen Goldsmith, in the process. In 1982, she created and directed the television pilot for young people, ''Smarkus and Company'', leading to her move to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in 1983. Once in LA, Ferrer initially worked as an executive at the

Disney Channel Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...

and in subsequent years worked at

Endemol Endemol B.V. was a Dutch-based media company that produced and distributed multiplatform entertainment content. The company annually produced more than 15,000 hours of programming across scripted and non-scripted genres, including drama, reality ...

, Triage Productions,

Warner Bros Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...

. and The Landsburg Company, the latter producing her TV movie ''In Defense of a Married Man'.'' In 1987 she was stricken with breast cancer, a disease that came and went over the remainder of her life. Drawing on her own experience, Ferrer wrote and produced the NBC documentary ''Destined to Live'', that chronicled the recovery journey of a hundred

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...

patients, for which she received a 1990 Humanitas Prize. However, 19 years after her initial cancer diagnosis, and after many periods of remission, she relapsed, passing away in Los Angeles in April 2006, just short of her 66th birthday. Suzi Ferrer, The Nudelman Altarpiece

Art

Ferrer's artistic career lasted only ten years, but they were very productive. She participated in five individual exhibitions, more than fifteen collective exhibitions in galleries in New York and San Juan, and three international biennials. Parallel to her artistic career, in the early seventies she began graduate studies in psychology at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. In 1976 she presented her thesis "A Theoretical Discussion of Creative Process and Exploratory Study of the Creative Puerto Rican", in which she interviewed 12 creatives who worked in Puerto Rico to listen to their creative process. That same year, Antonio Molina, art critic for the newspaper ''El Mundo'', included Ferrer in the artist biographies section in volume VIII of the ''Gran Enciclopedia de Puerto Rico''. File:Suzi Ferrer, The Artist & His Conscience, Private Collection.jpg File:Suzi Ferrer, Untitled, Private Collection.jpg In the 1970s, Ferrer produced drawings, prints and complex, immersive

art installation Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

s which used acrylic or Plexiglas, as support for her works. Introduced in the 1930s, by the 1960s Plexiglas was being employed by contemporary artists internationally as a material that inherently referenced that moment in time. Furthermore, Plexiglas’ transparency provided an eloquent visual for Ferrer’s images, whose composition was designed to be overlayed with other drawings or illustrated panels, so they can be jostled together and seen simultaneously through transparent layers. This illusion creates an interesting play between the apparent depth in the composition versus the flatness of the drawing. In addition, because Plexiglas is slightly reflective, viewers perceive their own reflection, implicating their bodies as part of the work and adding another layer of an imaged human body. Viewers can also see through Plexiglas layers, potentially perceiving other bodies behind the images. Suzi Ferrer, Amerika.jpg Suzi Ferrer, Amenaza.jpg File:Suzi Ferrer, Conflicto.jpg Ferrer used drawing as an act of defiance against conventional imagery of the body, sexuality, and desire. Like other female artists of the time, Ferrer's work became figurative, with deliberate breast, vaginal, and penile imagery, exploring female empowerment,

gender role A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...

s, female desire, and pleasure. Pop art became the ideal platform for navigating these issues: Ferrer juxtaposed comic book superhero images, catechism textbook illustrations, Chris Foss' drawings published in '' The Joy of Sex'', illustrations by children’s author Richard Scarry, and art-historical references to create images critical of

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of Dominance hierarchy, dominance and Social privilege, privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical Anthropology, anthropological term for families or clans controll ...

society. Her complex and critical images flipped the canon and focused on the female gaze — a women’s desiring gaze on a male object of sexual desire — thereby celebrating self-assured femininity. Almost fifty years after her pieces were first exhibited in galleries in Puerto Rico, art historian Melissa M. Ramos Borges organized and curated the first

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

of the artist. With the title ''Suzi Ferrer'', the exhibition opened in September 2021 at the Miramar Museum of Art and Design (MADMi).

Individual exhibitions

2021 Suzi Ferrer, retrospective exhibit curated by Melissa M. Ramos Borges, Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar (MADMi), San Juan, Puerto Rico. File:Suzi Ferrer, Plarotics.jpg, File:Suzi Ferrer, Portrait in Six Dimensions.jpg, File:Suzi Ferrer, The Nudelman Altarpiece.jpg, 1975 WestBroadway Gallery, New York. 1973 WestBroadway Gallery, New York. 1971 Plarotics, La Casa del Arte, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico. 1969 La Casa del Arte, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. 1966 La Casa del Arte, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Collective exhibitions

2019 ''Anarquía y dialéctica en el deseo: géneros y marginalidad en Puerto Rico''/''Anarchy, dialectics and genres in the MAC'' Parte I, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, Santurce. 1980 ''Grabados Puertorriqueños de la ESSO Standard Oil Company'', Biblioteca del Colegio Regional de Arecibo. 1976 ''Colectiva Gráfica Latinoamericana'', Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte (MHAA), Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras 1975 ''Dibujo y collage'', Centro Nacional de las Artes, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico. 1974 Inaugural exhibition, Centro Nacional de las Artes, Viejo San Juan, Puerto ''Mujeres Puertorriqueñas'', La Galería, Viejo San Juan ''Puerto Rican Prints,'' organized by the Pratt Graphic Center, New York. 1973 ''Primavera'', Galería Colibrí, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico ''New York Artists WestBroadway'', Rundetårn, Copenhagen, Denmark. ''Puerto Rican Prints: An Exxon Collection,'' traveling show ''Puerto Rican Prints,'' Galería Colibrí, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico Housatonic Museum of Art, Housatonic Community College, Bridgeport, Connecticut 1969 ''Puerto Rican Art'', New York 1968 Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte (MHAA), Universidad de Puerto Rico 1966 ''Experimentos serigráficos del taller ICP'', Galería Colibrí, Viejo San Juan 1965 Galería Campeche, Ateneo Puertorriqueño

Biennials

1974 3ra Bienal del Grabado Latinoamericano de San Juan, Convento de los Dominicos, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico 1973 XII Bienal de São Paulo, Puerto Rican delegation, Brasil 1972 IX Biennale Internationale d'Art de Menton, France 2nda Bienal del Grabado Latinoamericano de San Juan, Convento de los Dominicos

Collections

* Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña * ESSO Standard Oil Collection * EXXON * MHAA * MADMi

Distinctions

''Ganadora - medio gráfico'', IBEC, 1967. ''10 Best Dressed Women in Puerto Rico'', The San Juan Star, 1968. ''10 Best Dressed Women in Puerto Rico'', The San Juan Star, 1969 ''Special Award Winner'', 15th Annual Humanitas Prize, 1990

Selected publications

Bloch, Peter. ''Painting and Sculpture of Puerto Ricans''. New York: Plus Ultra Educational Publishers, 1978. (includes several black and white plates of Suzi Ferrer's work) Fernández, Jesse. "Installations at the Colibrí." ''The San Juan Star'', May 27, 1973, 14-15. (includes plates and description of her 1973 installation ''Portrait in Six Dimensions'') Fernández Méndez, Eugenio y Manuel Cárdenas Ruiz. "‘Instalaciones’ Del Mundo Absurdo En La Colibrí." ''Avance,'' June 18, 1973, 44-44. (includes plates and description of her 1973 installation ''Portrait in Six Dimensions'') Fullana Acosta, Mariela. "Redescubriendo el arte y la vida de Suzi Ferrer." ''El Nuevo Día'', October 12, 2021. (Review published in Puerto Rican newspaper of 2021 retrospective exhibition at Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar) López Pérez, Stephanie.
Suzi Ferrer: Deconstruye estereotipos a través del arte feminista
" ''90 Grados'', 18 September 2021. (Review in digital Puerto Rican publication of 2021 retrospective exhibition at Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar) Molina, Antonio. "Fichero Biográfico." In ''Gran Enciclopedia de Puerto Rico'', edited by Vicente Báez. Madrid: Ediciones R, September 1976. (includes several black and white and color plates of Ferrer's work) ———. "¿Manifesto De Arte U Obra Feminista?" ''El Mundo'', June 19, 1973, 11A. (Review of installation 'Portrait in Six Dimensions' when first exhibited in the Galería Colibrí in 1973) Pérez González, Aisha. "Arte, Vanguardia y Feminismo: Vida y Obra de Suzi Ferrer." B.A., Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras, 2018. Ramos Borges, Melissa M.
Omisión O Censura: Una Revisión De La Vanguardia Artística En Puerto Rico, 1960-1970
" Ph. D., Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2019. (First comprehensive study of avant garde art in Puerto Rico, contextualizes Ferrer's work with her contemporaries working on the island) ———. "Unos Comentarios En Torno a La Obra Experimental De Suzi Ferrer." Paper presented at the VIII Coloquio de investigación de historia de las mujeres: Mujer en las artes, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Utuado Campus, March 20, 2019. (Author analyses installation 'Portrait in Six Dimmensions' using

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even th ...

's The Second Sex as theoretical framework) Rodríguez, Jorge.
Suzi Ferrer y el desafío al convencionalismo fememino
" ''El Vocero'', September 21, 2021. (Review published in Puerto Rican newspaper of 2021 retrospective exhibition at Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar) Ruiz de la Mata, Ernesto Jaime. "Suzi Ferrer." ''The San Juan Star'', September 19, 1971, 10-11. (published text is an interview with Ferrer, with several black and white plates of her work)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferrer, Suzi 1940 births 2006 deaths American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent American people of Austrian descent American people of Polish descent 20th-century American women artists 20th-century American painters American women printmakers 20th-century American printmakers Artists from Brooklyn American women graphic designers American publicists Women television executives American women cinematographers American television executives Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning alumni Immigrants to Puerto Rico People from San Juan, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican people of European descent Artists from San Francisco Television producers from New York City American women television producers American women television writers Puerto Rican feminists American feminists