|
|
 |
|
|
Max Frisinger lives and works in Berlin. In recent weeks he has temporarily relocated to Tel Aviv to work on a project in collaboration with Loushy Art & Projects, whose results are featured in the exhibition Bin There.
Bin There shifts observation to the scope of the problem. Having previously engaged in the myth of leftovers and practices of reuse, collecting, assembling, and transformation, in the current project Frisinger explores the means employed to collect, channel, and eliminate waste.
Frisinger operates in a reality in which waste is a substance containing energy, movement, exertion, torque, and a momentum of shrinking and compression. The consumerist bon-ton is the recycling and reduction of waste volumes; the discourse launched by Frisinger perceives the bins as symbols of a cultural effort invested in the elimination and distancing of garbage out of sight. Reality's footprint, he believes, is not the waste itself, but the energy that accumulates during the process of its collecting, concentration, and the attempt to relocate and exclude it.
The bins are akin to hiding places, nooks in which waste comes to a halt and is hoarded. Their presence indicates that waste cannot be silenced and be made to disappear. Frisinger extracts the inertia stored in the bins and the force of the actions which persistently gather the waste therein; he sets them free, enabling them to act on and confront the garbage bins. The static nature of these waste containers thus acquires a dynamic interpretation.
The mobiles Falling Sleeves animate the journey undergone by a "thing" on its way to becoming silent garbage; construction waste that rolls swiftly down sleeve-like ducts, grooving them with violent traces. Cutting the sleeves open exposes the energy used in doing away with refuse as well as the power of construction they embody, which "goes to waste" at the end of the duct.
In Namaste, the compressing packer blades of garbage trucks are pitted against one another in a closing bow, preceding a coordinated dance or possibly—a fight. Juxtaposing the two blades in one physical plane focuses the force required to compress and compact the waste.
In Beach, Frisinger pursued the way in which the weight of the waste accumulating in garbage bags on the beach restrains the movement of the bags, and translated that movement to a long-legged "gallerina". The scenario of waste on the beach is a human metaphor analogizing the way in which experience, knowledge, and commitment are obtained.
To expose the effort invested in getting rid of trash in bins, in Dismantling, Frisinger undoes the rigid structure of the containers into a flat surface, neutralizing its containing potential. In Net he casts a container whose dimensions reflect the "net waste" mass which may be compacted into the bin, while disregarding the volume taken up by the waste itself.
Lock represents the element in which the entire towing effort is concentrated, the shifting of trash to a hiding place, away from our daily consciousness. Isolating this component, pulling it out of its sphere of operation, challenges the very act of elimination.
The secret of Frisinger's appeal lies in the fact that he leads his life as a work of art. His practice does not amount to studio work or fantasy. He lives as one of his artworks: entirely exposed, externalizing content, not "kicking away"; neither compressing, not throwing, he preserves, mends, observes, and renews—use as well as viewing.
|
|