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National Center for Contemporary Art
Kronstadt, Russia (Saint Petersburg)
ncca.ru
The following is a collection of images, videos, texts and links outlining the work created by j.frede during his time as an Artist in Residence at NCCA Kronstadt.
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The Exhibtion:
59.99230° N / 29.78197° E - Selected Works
February 8th 2014
This exhibition consisted of various works created by the artist j.frede during his residency at NCCA Kronstadt. Ranging from paintings to sculpture, drawings to video all of which were created in the last 30 days here in Kronstadt. Some of the works to be shown include the painting “All Ways But Still” which hangs as a loose canvas on the wall, which he recently wrote about on the Huffington Post. A diptych of drawings titled “Vigilant / Mischief” of sails and riggings of ships by the same names. A sculpture titled “For Alexander” consisting of an anchor with a knotted mass, the newest in j.frede’s Heirloom Series. A Video of the action titled “After Malevich” that features j.frede recreating the famous “Black Square” painting on the surface of the Baltic Sea. During his time at Kronstadt he has written six articles for the Huffington Post, several journal entries on his own tumblr blog, taken hundreds of photographs created ten new original works and made a number of videos and audio recordings.
http://www.ncca.ru/en/events.... |
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(click to see complete images) |
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The Journals & Essays:
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NCCA Kronstadt: Final Portraits (On Huffpost)
"I walk to the end of the island, returning to the public beach and pier I had visited on my first day. Where the road meets its end, two very strange lighthouses stand. More appropriately they might be called light towers, but who am I to rob them of their class. The Kronshtadt Fairway No. 15 (Summer Harbor) Front Range lighthouses are modular in design they are made up of cement rings that have been stacked to a determined height. When they were still in use a flame burned inside their square lantern housings...."
(Read the complete article with photos and video here)
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NCCA Kronstadt: A Roaming Stone (On Huffpost)
"I have created two works based on my interest in lodestones. The first piece is a sculpture titled "Navigation." I have taken the above quoted book, Small Boat Navigation (F.W. Sterling, 1916) and turned it into a working compass. By cutting through each page to the required depth, and fixing the pieces of an old Russian compass into the void, I have destroyed the very guide of which could have been used for proper navigation, creating the very tool the guide called for. The result is and wealth of knowledge that has been eliminated leaving only the ever-changing position of magnetic north as our guide, along with whatever knowledge of navigation we may already possesses...."
(Read the complete article with photos and video here)
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NCCA Kronstadt: After Malevich (On Huffpost)
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Just across the waters of the Baltic Sea from where I sit now writing this, the art world was changed forever. In 1915, The Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10 took place in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) that included 36 of Kazimir Malevich's minimal paintings. Almost at the ceiling, backed into the corner hung one of his most important works, "Black Square." With this exhibition, and his published Manifesto, From Cubism to Suprematism Malevich had, likely unbeknownst to him, changed art and possibility indefinitely. He paved the way for Constructivism and eventually to the Minimalist movement of the 1960s...."
(Read the complete article with photos and video here)
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NCCA Kronstadt: All Ways But Still (On Huffpost)
"For centuries, man has placed his faith in an invisible force. Something that could be felt, feared even, but which remains unseen. Civilizations expanded and advanced around the world, in part due to the wind, or more aptly, because man learned how to secure canvas and sail around the world on this mysterious force. The wind can leave as quickly as it had arrived, leaving sailors sitting quietly on a vast glassy sea, their sails reduced to loose canvas lying in wait. Since ancient Egypt, men across the globe have been grasping at the wind. Gradually their ships grew larger with additional sails, until the picturesque ships of the Age of Sails were a common site in harbors around the world...."
(Read the complete article with photos and video here)
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NCCA Kronstadt: The Flame That Burns Twice as Bright (On Huffpost)
“Walking up to the shattered door I step inside. To my left is a large charred chamber, and before me is what appears to be steps, now buried with rubble, leading down into the basement. Upon reaching the bottom, I see what could easily be the gates of Hell (or at least the foyer of Hell). Every inch of the ceiling is covered with black stalactites. The walls and ceiling have melted, dripping and oozing from exposure to an unimaginable inferno….”
(Read the complete article with photos and video here)
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NCCA Kronstadt: Still Light (On Huffpost)
“The lighthouse is silent. Its beacon lies still and logically so, considering the ice is working tirelessly at arresting the bay. Crows standing on its surface, which is covered in snow, could easily be mistaken for land if it were not for the massive ships resting both above and below its expanding solidity. A short time later a large ship sails into the harbor from the open sea crushing and displacing the ice and its efforts, its steel hull listless to the ice's attempts….”
(Read the complete article with photos and video here)
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NCCA Kronstadt: From the Frozen Sea to the Iron That Meets its Bed (On Huffpost)
“As I get to the land's end, I see one of Krontstadt's many lighthouses standing before me across the water. Suddenly, I hear a slow creaking sound, and I hurry to get out my audio recorder, placing it on the walls edge I sit still and listen to the ice slowly moan, it is both beautiful and unnerving. I assume it was the tide going out and the ice not yet having the strength to support itself, due to the unseasonably warm weather Kronstadt has seen so far this winter. Sitting silently listening to it quietly bellow a foghorn blast came from a near by factory noting it was noon. I looked to see the sun lazily hanging low in the sky. After some time, I retrieved my recorder and started walking back towards the city center….”
(Read the complete article with photos and audio here)
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Fort Alexander (On Tumblr)
"The fort was used as a Plague research center from 1894-1917, after the discovery of the plague pathogen by Alexandre Yersin in 1894. Converting the fort into a bacteriology research facility the scientists took a structure that had previously been designed to keep the enemy out, and brought the threat to mankind inside of the fort, which essentially created something of a deliberate Trojan Horse. The tests resulted in three pneumonic and bubonic plague cases amongst the staff, which resulted in the death of two scientists (and countless animals which they tested on including one camel)...."
(Read the complete article with photos and audio here)
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The Ice Field (On Tumblr)
"Both ships will be passing within a kilometer or two of us. Suddenly we hear a very unusual sound between the shore and us a beautiful, quick, strange and eerie sound. Within seconds there are very unnerving sounds all around us. The only thing I can really compare the sound to is that of 100 hammers striking a large water silo in chaotic intervals or a something that sounds the way lightening looks (not the way lightening sounds mind you). The sound was everywhere, the ice field to our left was screaming with tension."
(Read the complete article with photos and audio here)
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The Wild Side (On Tumblr)
"Reaching an opening we walk north out to the sea. Its vast water now residing as ice looks like an alien plain. Large mounds seem to grow from its surface where rocks below the water crushed the ice with its rise and fall. Cracks in the ice can be seen as if drawn from below the snow that has settled on its surface."
(Read the complete article with photos here)
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The Blue Light (On Tumblr)
"I climbed the wall and stayed low once on top (as there were a number of other Battleships at a pier not far way. Sitting on the edge behind a pile of smashed lifeboats finally at the end of land, I had an uninterrupted view. I could see the lighthouse in its classic posture but it too was silent. A small beacon closer to me was the only movement on the water."
(Read the complete article with photos here) |
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The Audio Recordings:
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j.frede : music for ice ports - Album
Pleased to announce my first album in 10 years; music for ice ports. Recorded and composed during my time at the National Center for Contemporary Arts in Kronstadt, Russia. This album is a collection of the field recordings I made with a Sony PCM-50 recorder and compositions made using an old Russian piano that was at the NCCA Residency studio and a vintage toy accordion I purchased at a flea market in Saint Petersburg.
There is also a PDF booklet with descriptions of each tracks origins and photos assocated with the recording.
download here - j.frede : music for ice ports (46:51)
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