Just over a month ago, Pedro Friedeberg passed away, leaving a void in Mexican art that probably no one else will fill in the same way. The guy died at 90 years old, and honestly, when you read about his life, you realize he lived exactly as he wanted: without commitments, without filters, pure absurdity and contradiction until the end.

What’s interesting about Friedeberg is that he managed to make eccentricity his trademark. He was not just an artist; he was a character who constantly reinvented himself. He worked obsessively, mixing geometry with astrology, tarot with mythology, all with huge doses of irony. His paintings and objects were like visual signatures of someone who simply refused to fit into the conventional categories of 20th-century art.

The people who knew him have incredible stories. When he was bid farewell in Mexico, from the Ministry of Culture to Netflix, everyone highlighted the same thing: he was a genius, but one of those who leave you speechless with their eccentricities. Guadalupe Loaeza, the writer, said something that perfectly summed up who he was: “He left with his wheelchair.” That was Friedeberg: someone who took his entire universe with him, leaving nothing behind.

Now, the most iconic work of Friedeberg, the one he is instantly recognizable for, is the hand-chair. It’s not a complicated object, but it’s brilliant in its simplicity: a hand that functions as a seat. When the Franz Mayer Museum held an exhibition in 2014 where they asked other artists to intervene with versions of the hand-chair, Friedeberg showed up with a zebra hat and a cardboard cat mask. Throughout the opening, he didn’t take it off. When asked to say something, he just let out a “meow.” That’s just how he was.

What’s fascinating is that this theatrical attitude wasn’t superficial. It came from his architecture studies, which gave him the technical tools to then break them in unpredictable ways. His understanding of the vanishing point, perspective, geometry—all of that was there in his work, but always with that touch of mockery that made him unique. His work went through moments of prominence and others of relative obscurity during the 20th century, but in recent years, it has become highly sought after by collectors.

Besides being a painter and sculptor, Friedeberg was also an author. He published books like “De vacaciones por la vida,” “La casa irracional,” and a recent volume with his name. His publishing house is now preparing a special book that gathers almost 500 letters and postcards he sent over more than seven decades, letters that reveal another dimension of his creativity that few knew.

But perhaps what best defines Friedeberg are his own “commandments”: never wear a baseball cap, don’t read bestsellers, never travel in economy class, only listen to your dogs and cats, ignore passing fads, leave huge tips, and remember that hypocrisy and selfishness are virtues for a life of mystical elevation. That was Pedro Friedeberg: a guy who played by the rules, broke them, and then mocked the result.

His legacy is everywhere: in museums, galleries, the walls of the Bellas Artes Metro station, in Netflix with his documentary, in Latin American modern art catalogs. But probably the most important thing is that Friedeberg proved that art doesn’t need to be serious to be profound, that eccentricity can be a manifesto, and that a hand turned into a chair can be more memorable than a thousand conventional works.