Pia Fries
thousand : any
December 2023 - March 2024
The “marvellous transformation” of caterpillars fascinated the naturalist and artist Maria Sybilla Merian in the 17th century. Pia Fries’ work schwarze blumen picks up on the theme of metamorphosis.
Pia Fries takes an idea as the starting point for her work and embraces the unpredictable. During the artistic process, she decides how colours, shapes and empty spaces fit together. Again and again, she is inspired by (historical) motifs that correspond to an inner visualisation and which she takes as the basis for artistic metamorphoses.
Such as in the sheets from tausend : einerlei, which we are showing at KiS - Kunst in Seefeld. Three illustrated books „Chinese bamboo paper production. A picture album from the 18th century“ form the basis for the works created in 2021.
Pia Fries always engages in new encounters during her work phases. In 2005, for example, a copy of Maria Sibylla Merian's „Caterpillar Book“ was the starting point for a series of works entitled „black flowers“. The naturalist and artist Merian was fascinated by the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies. Pia Fries took up this metamorphosis.
Too far to write down
Poems by John Yau
I, devoted cloud writer, ask for permission to present my thesis
While you scatter yellow clouds over open huts
Drawing red brushstrokes through mountain curtains
I look down the river at my poems, which deliver blazing life-wells
Dreaming I was in two places at once, listening
New spirits grumbling about lack of space
Until the old ghosts leave their shells for others
Hear sighs sobbing - wind catches in mulberry trees
Become a crumpled sheet on an empty bed
See smoke of victory and defeat rising into the sky of fire
Where the moon follows its twin in the marble regions of the firmament
I drip as ink and snow on this poem
Taken from Catalogue Pia Fries tausend : einelei mit Gedichten von John Yau; Kienbaum Artists‘ Books, 2022 Edition; Translation: Stefan and Barbara Weidle; Snoeck;
The Father and art
On the occasion of the vernissage, Prof Dr Friedhelm Mennekes SJ gave an introduction to the work of David LaChapelle.
The art expert founded and managed the Kunst-Station St. Peter in Cologne, a centre for contemporary art and music, for many years. He has been a visiting professor for contemporary art at numerous universities and has been „Consigliere per l'Arte Contemporanea“ at the Pontifical Council for Culture since 2021. Here are some quotes from his speech:
David LaChapelle is an artist I didn't know until Rafael Jablonka asked me to open this exhibition. After studying him and this work, I have to say: for me, he is one of the great, one of the greatest artists of our time.
He was socialised as a Catholic, like so many artists, for example Andy Warhol. Later, many, including LaChapelle, turned away from religion. What has remained, however, is the longing to produce images that is inherent to Catholicism. This is exactly what David LaChapelle does; it seems as if he wanted to create the Bible itself with this cycle.
You can bring a bunch of morals with the Christian thought or simply a voice at the right moment that says „you can't do that“. That stops the policemen in the picture ‚Intervention‘ from doing what they are doing.
LaChapelle does not make Catholic propaganda, but shows people who set themselves free. They do it because they can. That's why, for me, these pictures are among the most magnificent of this genre.
Pia Fries
I want to learn from the picture, let myself be surprised
Pia Fries (born 1955 in Beromünster, CH) began her artistic career in Switzerland in the sculpture class of Anton Egloff. In the 1980s, she went to the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where she became a master student of Gerhard Richter. In the years that followed, she developed her own unmistakable formal language. No two work cycles by Pia Fries are the same. Or as the artist herself says: „I want to learn from the picture and be surprised.“
Pia Fries' international reputation is reflected in numerous awards and professorships - until the beginning of 2023, for example, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. As well as in an impressive list of museums and galleries that have dedicated solo exhibitions to her work. These include Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Quadrat Bottrop, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Lindenau-Museum Altenburg, Museum Kurhaus Kleve and Kunstmuseum Winterthur.
In 2023, solo exhibitions were shown at Kunsthaus Baselland, Malkasten Düsseldorf, Miles McEnery Gallery New York and Walter Storms Galerie Munich. And in 2024, Pia Fries will exhibit in Salzburg with Nikolaus Ruzicka, at the Mai 36 Gallery in Zurich and at the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop.
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