DAVID FRIED 
selected recent works

PHOTOGRAMS:

In bed with lucy and dolly
photograms 1  photograms 2

Rainscapes
photography 1  photography 2

Vesicles of endevour 
photograms 3

SCULPTURES: 

Self organizing still life
movies 
of interactive sculptures
sculptures 1   sculptures 2

Stemmers
sculptures 3  sculptures 4


EXHIBITIONS:
exhibition views
curriculum vitae

TEXTS: english - deutsch
photograms
interactive sculptures
interview

contacts
on site



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© david fried 2003-6

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DAVID FRIED

1962 Born in New York City. (Scroll Down for Biography)
1989 Moved studio to Germany, currently living and working in Düsseldorf and NYC.

Curiculum Vitae

Group Gallery / Museum / Art fairs (Selection)

2009 Gallery KAFL, Dubai

2008 Bildertausch 3, Collection Marli Hoppe-Ritter, Museum Ritter, Germany.

2008 Art Cologne & Scope New York - Gallery Sara Tecchia, New York.

2007 Genesis - The Art of Creation, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland.

2007 Aqua Wynwood Miami - Gallery Sara Tecchia NYC

2007 Galerie Kasten, Mannheim, Germany & Kunstverein Ludwigshafen & Art.Fair Cologne.

2007 Gallery Sara Tecchia NYC & Galerie Noack MG at Köln-Liste art fair.

2006 Bewegung im Quadrat, Museum Ritter, Germany. Permanent Collection.

2006 Gallery Sara Tecchia, New York. Galerie Kasten, Mannheim, Germany.

2006 Plastic Fantastic, The Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts, NJ.
2006 Joint Venture, Richard Nelson & Pence Gallery, University of CA. at Davis.
2006 Gallery Adler & Poller: Art Rotterdam, Scope New York.
2005 Himmelsbilder, Dommuseum Salzburg.
2005 Galerie Adler / Galerie Poller at: Art Frankfurt, Berliner-Liste, Fiac Paris.
2004 Skywatch, K26, Frankfurt.
2004 Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf.
2004 Galerie Adler: Galerie Adler Frankfurt, KunstKoln, Scope London,
Art-Fair 04 Cologne. Gallery Poller: Galerie Poller Frankfurt, KunstKoln, Art Frankfurt, Photo-London, Photo New York - metropolitan pavilion, PalmBeach3.
2003 Galerie Poller: Art Frankfurt, Art Expo Düsseldorf.
2003 Kunst Museum Ahlen, traveling exhibition: Kunst in Bewegung.
2002 Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern, Kunst in Bewegung.
2002 Kunst Museum Heidenheim, Kunst in Bewegung.
2002 Kunst Museum im Kulterspeicher Würzburg, Kunst in Bewegung.
2002 Gleicher Ort Neue Zeit, Düsseldorf.
2002 Galerie Christian Hohmann Hamburg, at: Art Frankfurt.
2001 Galerie Martin Kudlek Cologne, at: KunstKöln, Art Brüssels, Art Frankfurt.
2001 Galerie Christian Hohmann Hamburg, at: Art Frankfurt.
2001 Galerie Martin Kudlek Cologne, at: KunstKöln.
2001 Sculpturesite Gallery, SF/USA. Illusions in space..
2000 Stadt Museum Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Permanent Installation / collection.
2000 Galerie Martin Kudlek Cologne, at KunstKöln.
1999 Gallery De Chiara/Stewart NYC, at: Art Forum Berlin.
1998 Martin Kudlek Fine Art, Aachen. New York Artists.
1997 Martin Kudlek Fine Art, Aachen.
1996 Alexander Fils Galerie, at: Art Multiple Düsseldorf.
1993 Amerika Haus, Cologne.
1992 Articom, Frankfurt. Das Bild im Bild.
1992 Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf.Visionäre Schweiz.
1992 Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf, at: Art Basel.
1992 ID Galerie, Düsseldorf.
1991 ID Galerie, Düsseldorf.
1987 The B.A.D.Gallery, NYC.
1985 The B.A.D.Gallery, NYC.
1984 Gallery 51X, NYC.
1984 N.Y.U. Contemporary Art Gallery, NYC.
1984 Alain Bilhaud Gallery, NYC, , curated and exhibited.
1983 Gabriel Bryers Gallery, NYC. artists-consortium Avant.
1983 GuGu Ernesto Gallery, Cologne Lowereastside.
1983 Galleria Lo Zebbetto, Milano. Lowereastside.
1983 Gallery 51X, NYC. Avant - Guerilla Art.
1982 Brooklyn Terminal Show, NYC. 300 artist invitational.

Solo Exhibitions (Selection)

2007 Far from Equilibrium, Gallery Sara Tecchia, New York.
2007 Living Variables, Galerie Kasten, Mannheim, Germany
2007 Neorder, Galerie Noack, Mönchengladbach, Germany.
2005 Fundación Municipal de Cultura 'José Luis Cano', Algeciras, Spain.
2005 Distibution of fate. Regional Museum Xanten, Germany.
2004 Gallery Brenner, Düsseldorf.
2003 Missing Link, Gallery Adler, Frankfurt.
2002 Self Organizing Still-Life, Gallery Poller, Frankfurt.
2002 Baker & McKenzie, Frank O. Gehry building, Düsseldorf.
2001 Recent Works, Gallery Hohmann/Levy, Hamburg.
2001 Night of the Museums, Düsseldorf: Solo event at Jörg Immendorff’s penthouse.
1999 Gallery Kudlek, Cologne.
1998 Martin Kudlek Fine Art, Cologne.

Bibliography (Selection)

Arts Speak, Art World, Arts Magazine, Cosmopolitan (Japan ed.), East Village Eye,
L‘Express, Flash Art, Modo, La Republican (Italy), New York Magazine,
New York Times, The Village Voice, World of Art Magazine, 100 Contemporay
Artists (Book), Frankfurter Rundschau, TAZ, WAZ, NRZ, Rheinescher Post,
NYarts magazine (Berlin ed.), TV Berlin, WDR Kulturszene, In to the Nature (Book), Manheimer Morgen, Meier Stadtmagazine (interview) dART magazine. Saatchi Online. Architecture of Change - Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment (Book)

Recent Public Collections:Stadtmuseum Gelsenkirchen,Germany. Volksbank HQ Mönchengladbach, Germany. Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch Germany.

Catalogues: 2004-6 - English / Deutsch

David Fried - Works / 1998 - 2006

In his recent collection of works David Fried reveals complex dynamic relationships in the form of minimalistic dichotic images and objects. His exploration into the inherent qualities and flexible characteristics of interdependent-networked systems found in nature and social endeavor are echoed throughout his sculptural, photographic and interactive works. The artist employs highly symbolic motifs that are universally recognizable as organic or pertaining to natural phenomena, yet are rendered with stark hints of the artificial and engineered.

He portrays structures of living-systems common to the global landscape, which have become unwitting hosts to an array of unperceivable, synthetic agents and patented elements. As with technology's often elusive yet discernable signs of influence or manipulation, his collective works engage our instincts, experience and knowledge to decipher and gage nebulous content, which lurk within the apparent superficialities.

Adding to the lucid sense of harmony and sensual aesthetic found in his compositions, Fried draws eclectic references from the mythological and contemporary scientific worlds. Much like the ancient's archetypical signs, he condenses contemporary issues into enigmatic symbols that intend a similar function. His works provoke our own personal transcendental processes, while calling attention to the constructed myths that surround science's more controversial applications involving complex issues whereby fact and fiction become one.

David Fried's essential archetypes, consisting of modernized fertility icons, photographs of celestial forces, photograms of cellular membranes, and interactive stone sculptures, are fabricated using traditional techniques combined with high-tech processes in a variety of mediums. He synchronizes diverse artistic and scientific disciplines to create bold contemporary icons that reflect our techno-cultural times, while emphasizing the affects technology has on our personal belief systems.

Fried's own catalytic mix of critique and trust in both science and contemporary culture, including his great respect for non-linear networks, dialogue, art and the sublime, form the core of his various unique projects. Processing these factors into an artistic unity, Fried fuses minimalism and conceptual art with aesthetic and philosophy to create works that transcend diverse cultural and linguistic boundaries. In his comprehensive work, Fried suggests that the mythological and the scientific involve inextricable systems of belief that - as in the Renaissance - must remain in constant dialogue, as art follows life and life follows art.

Biography

Born 1962 in New York City, the artist David Fried found his calling early on. He was accepted as the first minor everr into the adult classes at the Art Students League where he had his first chance to expand his artistic horizons. Between the age of 8 and 13, beyond mastering traditional and established contemporary styles, he painted in oil with a visionary style of his own that earned him numerous awards and public solo exhibitions as a youngster. Soon after his departure from the academic world, he co-founded an artist's consortium known as "Avant", which along with Haring and Basquiat were major contributors to the emerging New York street-art scene. His notorious illegal public paintings led to inclusions in dozens of gallery exhibitions in soho and the east village throughout the early to mid 80's.

Fried's fascination with specifically human relationships present in his early figurative paintings led to deeper insights into complex relationships in general, which soon crystallized as the conceptual core for all his forthcoming artistic endeavors. Though painting was his primary medium, in 1980 he became aware of photography and it's strengths as an expressive form of art. Even in that pre-digital time, Fried understood that relatively young medium had room for advance through the painter's eye. His hands-on research led to such a panache of traditional, state of the art and invented photographic techniques that several top commercial photographers and photo labs in NYC hired him as a consultant. He simultaneously pursued his art and studied philosophy, primitive mythology, life sciences and aspects of technology and mass media in our cultures.

In 1989, shortly before the Berlin wall came down, Fried moved his studio to Germany where he sought Europe's entwined cultural distinctions and social dialogue to inspire and explore his increasingly scientific and philosophic brand of art. There his work developed from painting and photography into his own morphology of techniques and processes such as "light sensitive paint" and "interactive granite" to depict and fabricate his conceptual explorations. Since then his artwork has followed several distinct avenues that are disparate in actualization yet united in sensibility.

His international career began in earnest several years after relocating to Europe with his first major solo exhibition in Cologne, Germany. Soon after he was invited to use Immendorff's open studio for a one night exhibition and performance for the "Night of the Museums" in Düsseldorf. Through his gallery representatives he has become a veteran of the European art fair circuit and his work has been spotlighted in the critically acclaimed traveling museum exhibition "Kunst in Bewegung" which included artists such as Rauschenberg, Horn, Uecker, Calder and others. Fried has mounted several solo exhibitions in galleries, institutions and museums across Europe and is in various collections including a permanent installation at Germany's most notable kinetic art collection in Gelsenkirchen's art museum.

David Fried currently lives in Germany and works in Düsseldorf and in New York City.

Foreword from catalogue / 2001

The New York born interdisciplinary artist David Fried presents recent works, which deal with fundamental common denominators and their potential recombination. Exploring our diverse and labile environment, comprised of individuals – so called sovereign entities entwined in a network that is constantly changing, his works speak of interdependent life, whereby the periphery becomes the centre.

His acoustically stimulated interactive sculptures “SOS – Self Organizing Still-Life” are compelling by their symbolically provocative simplicity, creating a live complex visual experience as the viewer is moved to forge perspectives on relationships, life and the universe of thought.

Fried’s photographic works reveal relationships as delicate temporal architecture, emerging when the primary elements of life- water and air- get together. Reflecting further on the human condition, these images that resemble living cells called “In Bed with Lucy and Dolly” take us on a biomorphical journey “from the Cambrian sea to the artificial womb”.

"The title refers to Lucy (the early hominoid Mother), to Us (the Myth), and to Dolly the sheep (the Missing Link) in a dialogue that seeks orientation in a world in which man has moved from controlling the environment to the inescapable urge to invent our predecessors".

As we have become genetic engineers that continue to shape the global landscape and the future, we face new challenges concerning the balance of nature to find solutions for the benefit of a sustainable- yet rapidly changing world.

Fried’s works echo our process of seeking and learning as we plunge into the polarities of 21st century thought and deed.

Prof. Dr. Norbert Bolz

Bolz speech at Fried exhibition, Neuer Zollhof Düsseldorf, 2001.

(...) the SOS works aim to build bridges of thought that transcend a maximum diversity of language, culture and understanding, yet inspire very specific concepts in each. - Fried

David Fried - 1998 - 2006

In seinen aktuellen Arbeiten zeigt David Fried dynamische Beziehungen in Form von minimalistischen dichotischen Bildern und Objekten. Dabei erforscht er die Eigenschaften und flexiblen Besonderheiten, die zusammenhängenden Netzwerken innewohnen, wie man sie in der Natur und in sozialen Gefügen findet. Dieses Erforschen zieht sich durch sein gesamtes Werk: seine Skulpturen, seine fotographischen und interaktiven Arbeiten. Seine stark symbolischen Motive sind allgemein erkennbar als organisch oder mit Naturereignissen verbunden, und verweisen doch gleichzeitig mit subtilen Andeutungen auf das Künstliche und Technisierte.

Er portraitiert Strukturen lebendiger Systeme, wie sie in der globalen Landschaft vorkommen; Systeme, die unwissentlich Wirte nicht wahrnehmbarer synthetischer Wirkstoffe und patentierter Elemente geworden sind. So wie in der Technologie die Zeichen von Einflussnahme oder Manipulation oft nur schwer fassbar oder erkennbar sind, so sprechen auch seine gesammelten Arbeiten unseren Instinkt, unsere Erfahrungen und unser Wissen an, die wir benötigen, um die nebulösen Inhalte, die unter der sichtbaren Oberfläche schlummern, zu entschlüsseln und zu erfassen.

Neben dem eindeutigen Sinn für Harmonie und sinnliche Ästhetik, den man in seinen Kompositionen wiederfindet, lässt Fried ausgewählte Anspielungen auf die mythologische und zeitgenössische wissenschaftliche Welt mit einfließen. Den antiken archetypischen Zeichen sehr ähnlich, verdichtet er zeitgenössische Themen zu rätselhaften Symbolen, die eine ähnliche Funktion haben. Seine Arbeiten beschwören unsere eigenen transzendentalen Prozesse herauf und machen gleichzeitig auf die konstruierten Mythen aufmerksam, die die eher kontroversen Wissenschaftsfelder mit sehr komplexen Themen beinhalten, wobei Realität und Fiktion miteinander verschmelzen.

David Frieds grundlegende Archetypen, die auf modernen Fruchtbarkeitssymbolen, Fotographien überirdischer Kräfte, Fotogrammen von Zellmembranen und interaktiven Steinskulpturen beruhen, wurden durch die Verbindung von herkömmlichen Techniken und High-Tech-Prozessen durch eine Vielzahl von Hilfsmitteln hergestellt. Er synchronisiert verschiedenste künstlerische und wissenschaftliche Disziplinen, um gewagte zeitgenössische Ikonen herzustellen, die unsere technisch-kulturelle Zeit widerspiegeln, wobei die Betonung auf den Auswirkungen liegt, die die Technology auf unser persönliches Glaubenssystem hat.

Fried’s eigene katalytische Mischung aus Kritik und Glauben an sowohl der Wissenschaft, als auch an der zeitgenössischen Kultur (dazu gehören auch sein großer Respekt vor nicht-linearen Netzwerken, dem Dialog, der Kunst und dem Erhabenen) bilden den Kern seiner vielen einzigartigen Projekte. Indem er diese Faktoren zu einer künstlerischen Einheit verbindet, verschmelzt Fried Minimalismus und konzeptuelle Kunst mit Ästhetik und Philosophie und erschafft so Arbeiten, die verschiedenste kulturelle und linguistische Grenzen durchbrechen. In seiner umfassenden Arbeit zeigt Fried an, dass Mythologie und Wissenschaft undurchdringbare Glaubenssysteme beinhalten, die – wie in der Renaissance – in ständigem Dialog zueinander stehen müssen, während die Kunst sich nach dem Leben und das Leben sich nach der Kunst richtet.

Recent & Upcoming art fairs and exhibitions: DETAIL INFO

Solo / Far from Equilibrium, Gallery Sara Tecchia New York, September 2007

PLAY video review ( External Link )

Public Broadcasting Atlanta - Aired: July 6th 2008 / Exhibition: Sculpture in Motion

PLAY TV review ( External Link )

VernissageTV : Art Fair /Liste-Köln, April 2007

PLAY video review ( External Link )

THE SAATCHI GALLERY / 2007 Review "far from Equilibrium" exhibition NYC:

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/2007/10/trent_morse_on_david_fried_at_1.php

Exhibition "Genesis, The Art of Creation" / "Genesis - Die Kunst der Schöpfung" :

Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern Switzerland: January 26 - April 27, 2008

Meier Stadtmagazin: Interview 2007 / Eva Mayer

Mannheimer Morgen : Review of exhibition at Kunstverein Ludwigshafen. Fall 2007

Mannheimer Morgen : Review of exhibition at Projektraum4 / Galerie Kasten. Fall 2007

Press and Text : "Kunst in Bewegung", travelling museum exhibition 2002-03

Images from Invitation card: Robert Rauschenberg, David Fried, Günther Uecker, Steven Pippen.

TV clips: ArtForum Berlin -TV Berlin / KunstKoln - WDR Kulturszene

dART magazine, Fall 2006

Rheinischer Post

Frankfurter Rundschau & Rheinischer Post

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