This YouTube interview (Cracks Podcast episode) features Pedro Friedeberg discussing surrealism, the role of the absurd in his work, his interactions with Salvador Dalí (humorous, mutually-mocking conversations at St. Rides in New York), and anecdotes about his family's flight from Germany including a confrontation with the Gestapo on a train.
Tell me about those nights at St. Rides in New York, talking to this person you describe as a charlatan who had you mesmerized? Salvador Dali. What did you talk about? Well, we made fun of each other. Everything seemed very funny and very curious, very absurd. We love the absurd. And the absurd is one of the bases of surrealism. Right. Of contrasting things that have nothing to do with each other, of imagining things that one has never seen, never intuited. But that is a gift given to very few people. Right. Most people lead very, very square and very sad lives, I think, limited to soccer and the conventional. Maestro, you and your family fled Germany, and you tell in your anecdotes that on your way out of Europe, you came face to face with the Gestapo on a train. Yeah.
