NEWS
6.6–30.8.2020
In Summer 2020, Malmö-based artist Luca Frei, born in 1976 in Lugano, Switzerland, is holding his biggest solo exhibition in Sweden. The large-scale presentation spans over a period of twenty years and contains a number of works that have never before been shown in Sweden. The exhibition is his most extensive to date. From Day to Day presents a broad and multi-faceted production and brings together design, handcraft, architecture, acoustics and music history along with Frei´s practice as a visual artist. Despite an international career exhibiting and many assignments in Malmö and Sweden, a large separate exhibition has so far been missing.
Luca Frei often builds his work around a story – a quote, a book or photographs – and many of the works offer references to poets, musicians or other inspirers whose artistry is highlighted and woven together with Frei’s own history. The sense of inclusion also encompasses the viewer who is invited to interact with some of the works through playful, performative elements. In the exhibition, as a visitor, you can leave messages, move objects or re-arrange certain installations. The time the viewer spends with the works is put into focus, together with the relationship between the body and the architecture.
Modernism has been a starting point for Frei, as evidenced by both the desire to emphasize the design language associated with its historical figures and his interest of the functional and symbolic potential of forms and objects. The Bauhaus movement’s basic ideas of uniting art, sculpture, architecture and design can also be seen as a source of inspiration. Frei participated with several works in the big exhibition Bauhaus Imaginista last year, when the movement celebrated 100 years. One of the works, Model for a Pedagogical Vehicle (2018), is now on display at Malmö Konsthall.
The exhibition From Day to Day is not a conventional chronological compilation, but instead appears as a physical archive of an artistic activity. By adding work to work, the exhibition creates a context in which Luca Frei’s own artistry and world of ideas is at the center.
In connection to the exhibition, Luca Frei recreates the performance piece See Saw(1960), originally by Simone Forti, in collaboration with local dancers from the group Nya Rörelsen. The performance will take place on the opening day of June 6th at 2.30 pm and on the closing day of August 30th at 2.30pm. The work was first shown under the direction of Luca Frei at the Moderna Museet in 2015.
Luca Frei’s previous solo exhibitions include Kunsthaus Glarus; Bonner Kunstverein; Museo Cantonale d’Arte, Lugano, and Lunds Konsthall. Group exhibitions include Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; The National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto; Centre Pompidou, Paris and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
With the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
Malmö Konsthall
S:t Johannesgatan 7
SE-205 80 Malmö
https://www.konsthall.malmo.se
Photo By Helene Toresdotter
