Urs Frei, Secession, 1999, Photo Christian Wachter
 

Urs Frei (born in 1958 in Zurich) consciously and emphatically rejects the traditional categories of artistic production in his work.
 


Urs Frei, Secession, 1999, Photo Christian Wachter


He constructs his works from rubbish and everyday items such as wooden planks, buckets and sacks, which he then covers with bright paint and exhibits either lying on the floor, or hanging from the wall or ceiling. These works can neither be unequivocally identified as painting nor as sculpture. Just as Frei leaves the question of artistic medium open, he avoids drawing a clear distinction between the artistic product and artistic production. He does not differentiate between the exhibition space and work situation in the studio, where he continually arranges his works in ever new constellations in order to photograph them. In fact, the artist's oeuvre can be seen as a cycle of successive constructions and deconstructions.
 
Frei will be utilizing the same principle in the Secession, as well: he will bring a large quantity of material alongside finished works and will be installing them to fit this particularly location.
 
In spite of the total visual (especially coloristic) effect that Frei is striving for with his spatial constellations, one cannot really speak of installations as each individual work possesses its own distinct character. On account of the coloristic treatment of their surfaces with bright enamel paints, the mundane materials assume an aesthetic quality and are transformed into abstract compositions. At the same time, his objects do not conceal their unspectacular and trivial nature. Hence, his stuffed plastic bags, which are tied several times with twine, can be seen only as metaphorical on a secondary level - namely as the result of aggressive trussing. Above all, these knots serve to create and emphasize elemental plastic volumes.
 
 
PUBLICATION

URS FREI authors: Patricia Grzonka, Matthias Herrmann bilingual. Secession 1999 ___________________ available in the shop

STEVEN BROWER   KENDELL GEERS   ANNIKA STRÖM

EXHIBITION PROGRAM 1999

For further information and photographic material please contact:
 
Pia Leydolt
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-21, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
presse@secession.at