Free Williamsburg - 111 Gallery - CHRISTOPHER FREDERICK

Have you ever seen a person, a stranger, and guessed their name? You don't have much to go on, only a few clues contained in their looks or in the context of their surroundings. Yet, with so little, you're able to not only name them, but to establish a bit of their personality and history; how well-off they are, what their job is, if they like rap music, or shop at a mall.

Chris Frederick's photographs invite you to play this game, albeit not specifically by naming strangers, but by giving you a situation to invent a history for, from the most subtle clues and suggestions.

An aerial view of a kitchen counter, tightly cropped and peering into the coils and insides of a dirty chrome toaster. On either side of the toaster are the detritus of breakfasts, bread crumbs and coffee stains. There are two coffee pots on opposite edges of the photograph, one black and one white. The toaster divides the messy scene like a wall in a battlefield, each coffee pot holding it's ground.

The picture is titled "roomates". I assume they don't get along.

Or am I projecting? Does Chris Frederick's history play out on this scene, or am I reliving my own past domestic tensions through his photograph?

You would think that by looking at a room of images that the artist's selected to share with us from the last three years of his life, you would come away with an understanding of that artist's life. However, the scenarios we invent from Chris Frederick's photographs are not about Chris Frederick, they are about ourselves.

-Bret Nicely

CHRISTOPHER FREDERICK'S SOLO EXHIBITION , TIME FRAGMENTS, CURATED BY SARAH BELDEN
IS ON VIEW AT TELOMERE PROJECTS UNTIL JUNE 6TH 2001.

475 KENT AVENUE, 6TH FLOOR -- (212)925-0907 -- telomereprojects@aol.com

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Free Williamsburg© | 93 Berry Street | Brooklyn, NY 11211
freewilliamsburg@yahoo.com | Mayl 2001 | Issue 14
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