Heirlooms; New Sculptures that investigate objects and their memories
I am interested in the idea of objects holding the past while hiding their past from strangers. The memories we associate with our grandfathers watch or the blanket our mother made us, we can have strong reactions at the mere sight or smell of items whose history we can recall and the same objects are static to anyone else who sees them with no personal association.
Is this history locked into the mantel clock whose chime mesmerized us a children or the stool we climbed atop to sneak cookies at night? Do they act as some sort of memory safe that grips its contents allowing only you to fall back into the past, for better or worse? The objects seem still while the knotted masses hold dear or secure the items and act out as the gripping hand of ownership, tightly wound balls of tension and as growths that can be both troubling and foreign.
These are the ideas I am exploring with Heirlooms, marrying my Security Sculptures with objects both from my past and objects I have no personal history with but surely invoke strong memories for strangers I have never meet.
Heirlooms will be shown alongside Amanda Gordon Dunn's new series of paintings based on the designs and pin striping of early surfboards painted in Amanda's clean simple aesthetic.
June 22nd, 2012 (Opening Reception 6pm - 10pm)
Pirate Contemporary Art
3655 Navajo St,
Denver, CO 80211
303.458.6058
I have a new piece in a large group show happening in Los Angeles March 31st 2012. "All In For The 99%" is organized by Van Jones (Rebuild the Dream), Russell Simmons (Occupy the Dream), SEIU, and MoveOnCivilAction taking place in Hollywood for a single day at a pop up gallery. 50 Artists were invited to present work that addresses the Occupy movement and the 99%.
My work for the show is titled "Marie Antoinette" and features a guillotine blade silkscreened, silver leafed and drawn onto a single dollar bill.
below is the info taken from the All In For The 99% page;
All in for the 99% is a launch event, calling for unity and cooperation in the progressive community. On March 31st, artists, musicians, writers and activists will gather and use creative collaboration to amplify the voices of the 99%, demanding an end to Citizens United and calling loudly as one for real campaign finance reform.
Last Fall, the 99% finally found it's voice. This Spring, we’re giving them a microphone: a wave of united art, culture, & music aimed directly at the core problem obstructing real change in our country.
Artists Include: Robbie Conal, Aaron Rose, Chris Johanson, Retna, Sage Vaughn, Michael Muller, Deedee Cheriel, Mel Kadel, Shepard Fairey, Ione Skye and over 50 other amazing artists.
-Slake Magazine Curated Readings and Presentations
-Aerial art produced by Interconnected
-DJ Sets Curated by the Embassy!
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
