I have been super busy in the studio as of late working on an extensive drawing series that will consist of 500 drawings all belonging to a body of work titled Incidental Drawings that uses chance to determine the shapes that will be drawn.
I have also finished several new Security Sculptures, I hope to get a few more up on the site soon.
The most recent piece I have completed is a sculpture titled English Oak and is the first in a body of work titled Reductions that is based on the removal of negative space from found objects.
English Oak was a set of chairs I found on the street in Los Angeles. I photographed the pair then took the shabbier of the two and disassembled it, cutting it, breaking it and keeping track of each piece I slowly puzzled its pieces into the base of the chair leaving as little air between the pieces as possible, removing its negative space and reducing it to material.
English Oak will be shown as a set of sculptures, future works will be show along side photographic documentation, drawings or simply measurements of the objects previous size before it was reduced.
Documentation of this work, the Incidental Drawings and snap shots of the new Security Sculptures on my artist page on Facebook, I regularly upload working photos that don’t make it on this site….
A collaborative work between New York based artist Joseph Imahuser and myself was on show for the month of September as part of the Reborn Exhibition at NYU.
Reborn: 9/11 Gallery Exhibition
Human consciousness is finite. Each of us lives for only a passing moment. Perhaps this ephemerality, obvious in the wake of 9/11, compels us to search for the meaning of our existence. For this exhibit, “Reborn,” each artist has been asked to exhibit work that is their memory/reaction. The artists are a community, a diverse group of faculty, graduate and undergraduate artists from the Art and Art Professions Department of the Steinhardt School. The Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the Steinhardt School have gotten to know each other through the vehicle of art. Cutting across traditional lines is what often brings people together.
When: 9/13/2011 5:00pm-6:30pm
Location: The Puck Building, Rice Conference Room / Newman Reception Area
295 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012-9604
News - August 2011- Print Release & Eyespies
j.frede Glass Music Box Set
I am pleased to announce the release of “Glass Music” on Frederick Publishing. Consisting of 28 hand painted photographs that were used by the performers as visual sheet music, each photograph has been recreated to match the lines of the originals. Following in the direction of many Avant-garde composers, Frede choose to use visual sheet music in an attempt to interpret the buildings interior architecture while staying with the experimental nature of both the medium and the structure itself. Previously j.frede has photographed interior structures and converted the photographs to sound using software, the glass music score is a graduation of this practice.
Excerpt from Essay for The Berkeley Art Museum Blog
On May 6, 2011 I presented my Glass Music performance at the Berkeley Art Museum in the vast interior that is the museum’s main hall. Fourteen performers placed on five different levels of the museum, each performer with two water-filled wine glasses and visual sheet music created from the lines of the museum’s interior architecture. The mysterious angelic sound of the wine glasses singing moved through the space forward, backward, and above the audience. The clean crisp tones made their way around the space and seemed to breathe and flow in a non-directional manner, creating a thick aural cloud that dissipated and grew, seemingly by its own will. The museum’s normally difficult acoustics aided the performance, allowing the sound to reverberate softly and amplifying the natural sounds of the singing glasses.
This limited release consists of an archival photo box, the entire score of 28 hand painted photographs, an essay the artist wrote about the piece on request of The Berkeley Art Museum and a thumb drive containing audio recordings of the performance. .......more info here.......
my weekly photoblog that was featured on The Citrus Report for 30 straight weeks is now available here on jfrede.com.
I will continue the project on a regular basis until reaching no.50 at which time I plan to show 500 photographs from the series. eyespies no.32 is now up and ready for your eyes to see !
News - April - recent happenings and upcoming exhibitions
May 6th 2011
j.frede presents
Glass Music at the Berkeley Art Museum
Curated by Mark Allen of Machine Project
I am happy to announce I have been invited to present and perform Glass Music at the Berkeley Art Museum. Mark Allen of Machine Project asked me if I would be interested in doing a larger version of the performance after last years Glass Music show at Machine. This new performance will be the largest to date and will include 30 Performers and Ninety wine glasses. I will be photographing the interior of the museum and creating visual sheet music from the lines of the architecture. http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/late050611
I also added more images to the Black Gold page from the recent Beta Release Exhibition.
BETA RELEASE: Experiments in video, sound + performance
Phantom Galleries Long Beach
Opening reception: Saturday, March 12, 6-9 PM Concurrent with the Long Beach Downtown Art Walk
Organized by Jennifer Frias, Jeff Rau and Sixpack Projects.
Featuring the works of Georg Burwick, j.frede, JEFF & GORDON, Christopher O’Leary, and shea M gauer!
News - January - Southern California Soundscape Ensemble
The first salon and performances from the newly formed Southern California Soundscape Ensemble took place on January 20th at {open} bookstore in Long Beach, CA.
The Southern California Soundscape Ensemble (SCSE) has been created with the intention of becoming part of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology. Consisting of phonographers from around Southern California, SCSE presents and performs unaltered field recordings in group performances creating deep surround sound listening salons using recordings made around the world from its collective of artists, musicians and composers.
Recordings of the first two performances are now online on the Founder, Glenn Bach's website. listen/download here.
News - December - New Photographic Studies + New photoblog on The Citrus Report + Amor Fati
The newest set in my Photographic Study Series is now online. The second study in my Case Study Nest Series which takes a close look at the elements of a birds nest.
I have a photograph in the new issue of Amor Fati Arts & Literary Magazine
AMOR FATI is a quarterly digest featuring the works of Los Angeles writers, artists, and creatives. In a city of disparate parts, our aim is to create an active platform for organic and challenging exchange that is not only reflective of this generation but brings a collective voice to an anomalous city.
The newest set in my Photographic Study Series is now online. Taking a look at the stillness of the streets at night in Los Angeles' Echo Park neighborhood.
News - October - RE:FORM SCHOOL Exhibition NYC + Juxtapoz Greg "Craola" Simkins Feature
illiteral - j.frede
October 9th –11th, 2010 - On show at the RE:FORM SCHOOL Exhibition in NYC
ABOUT THE WORK:
illiteral transforms a classic American novel into a format that is almost impossible to read while maintaining all of the original content. While readers can interpret some phrases with enough concentration and time, the effort to decipher other elements will cause them to lose hope. This struggle and eventual feeling of hopelessness acts as an exercise in illiteracy.
This book was created to explore the emotional and visual experience of illiteracy. Each word in the book consist of the original letters scrambled. No new letters or punctuation were introduced, keeping the experience as true as possible.
illiteral was conceived and produced for the RE:FORM SCHOOL Exhibition, a pop up gallery whose goal is to raise awareness for education reform. Taking place in a empty school in New York City’s lower east side, RE:FORM SCHOOL brings together artists from around the world to address this cause. illiteral is presented as an object in the exhibition; ten copies will be available for purchase.
- j.frede
ABOUT RE:FORM SCHOOL:
RE:FORM SCHOOL is a group art exhibition and event series, bringing together hundreds of artists to send a loud message that the time has come to fix our ailing Public Education System.
j.frede wrote the cover story for this months Juxtapoz Magazine on Painter Greg "Craola" Simkins.
From the Juxtapoz Website:
"To honor the entry of Fall, we have one of the most prolific and active artists going today, Greg "Craola" Simkins on the cover of the magazine for October 2010 issue. We are pleased he took time out and spoke with contributing writer, J Frede and an epic shoot with Kevin Knight......"
