Howard Fried
Derelicts
08 Sep - 19 Nov 2016
Howard Fried
Derelicts [installation view], 2016, 'Derelict V', 2016, Wattis Institute
Courtesy of the artist and The Box
Photo: John White
Derelicts [installation view], 2016, 'Derelict V', 2016, Wattis Institute
Courtesy of the artist and The Box
Photo: John White
HOWARD FRIED
DERELICTS
8 September – 19 November 2016
Curated by Jamie Stevens
An active artist in the Bay Area since the late 1960s, Howard Fried’s work is driven by highly detailed conceptual frameworks that expand and modulate according to his own personal exertions during the process of production. Fried's archive of work contains a wide breadth of subjects, both personal and philosophical, all of which are linked by an unceasing accumulation of critical and practical questions during the realization of projects, questions that can radically alter his approach in any given moment. What is at stake is not so much a work’s completion as its resolution, an attempt to minimize the discrepancies between the material development of each work with their internal logics or intended effects.
At the center of this exhibition is Derelict V, a new large-scale architectural installation that is a continuation of Fried's series Derelict (1974-1983). Derelict plays upon contrasting scales and paradoxical perspectives of the same simple tableau: a coffee cup resting upon a formica table. Components and materials from the four previous (and distinct) works from the Derelict series are also installed. Derelicts presents work both in-progress and historical, without seeking to establish a priority between the two. Two early videos—Condom (1975) and Intraction (1973)—provide further examples of Fried's vigorously non-linear investigations into the dynamics of authority and decision-making.
DERELICTS
8 September – 19 November 2016
Curated by Jamie Stevens
An active artist in the Bay Area since the late 1960s, Howard Fried’s work is driven by highly detailed conceptual frameworks that expand and modulate according to his own personal exertions during the process of production. Fried's archive of work contains a wide breadth of subjects, both personal and philosophical, all of which are linked by an unceasing accumulation of critical and practical questions during the realization of projects, questions that can radically alter his approach in any given moment. What is at stake is not so much a work’s completion as its resolution, an attempt to minimize the discrepancies between the material development of each work with their internal logics or intended effects.
At the center of this exhibition is Derelict V, a new large-scale architectural installation that is a continuation of Fried's series Derelict (1974-1983). Derelict plays upon contrasting scales and paradoxical perspectives of the same simple tableau: a coffee cup resting upon a formica table. Components and materials from the four previous (and distinct) works from the Derelict series are also installed. Derelicts presents work both in-progress and historical, without seeking to establish a priority between the two. Two early videos—Condom (1975) and Intraction (1973)—provide further examples of Fried's vigorously non-linear investigations into the dynamics of authority and decision-making.