Magic is dead. Today's premier magicians, or "illusionists," as many call themselves, are more or less stuntmen. David Blaine, who cut his teeth performing boggling card tricks on the streets of New York, now subsists as a self-adoring spectacle, executing feats - like holding his breath while shackled underwater and getting buried alive - which nearly kill him, acts of endurance more than any sort of illusion. We watch him to see if he'll die, not to be mystified. David Fried, a New York-born artist based in Berlin, brings magic and mystery back to our culture, and at an art gallery no less.
For his exhibition 'Far from Equilibrium, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chaos' (2001-2007) at Sara Tecchia Roma New York, Fried combines art and science and, well, magic to create kinetic sculptures called 'Self Organizing Still-lifes,' or 'S.O.S.' Minimalist in form but not in personality, the phenomenal sculptures consist of acoustically activated orbs that roll around on platforms surrounded by elastic ropes. Rare-earth minerals - sensitive to slight changes in pressure and magnetic by nature - are the magical dust contained inside these solid spheres that set them in motion; there is no electromechanical trickery.
Fried likes to say that the balls "dance" with idiosyncratic styles, which is true enough when they react to the fluid melodies of jazz or classical music. But when responding to cacophonous ambient noise, the balls bounce off the ropes and collide aggressively like professional wrestlers or like unicellular organisms responding to their environment. In other words, chaotically. Unpredictable both by nature and by design (each orb varies in size and in quantity of rare earth, producing unique temperaments), the 'Self Organizing Still-lifes' are mesmerizing to watch.
Near the entrance of Sara Tecchia gallery, a group of seven white spheres on a black granite platform appeared to be having a good time, dancing nonstop to the constant sounds of chatter and footsteps and doors slamming in the hallways and stairwells outside the galley doors. In a quiet back room, I found four marble spheres resting peacefully on a white granite slab. I sat in a nearby chair and peeled back the Velcro-fastened flap of my satchel. The harsh sound of Velcro sent the largest of the balls ramming into the smaller balls, with the familiar clack of billiards, setting them in motion too. After a few minutes, they relaxed, so I clicked my pen repeatedly, which caused the orbs to twirl in gentle circles. I then spoke to them in the playful tone I use with my Scottish terrier, and they zigzagged excitedly.
It is easy to become enamored with these little fellows. They exude character, and you want to coddle and nurture them as if they were pets. But instead of food and water the orbs thrive on sound. So you feed them noise, and you experiment with different acoustic diets, as I'm sure Fried had done over hundreds of hours in his studio. And at the end of the day when all is silent, the sculptures settle into still-life tranquility, waiting for the next magic moment.
Trent Morse
David Fried
Until 20 October
Sara Tecchia Roma New York
529 West 20th Street
2nd Floor
New York, New York 10011
T: +1 212 741 2900
www.saratecchia.com
Trent Morse is an arts journalist and a medical writer based in New York. He has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where he produced a collection of stories about artists who use celebrity subject matter in their work.
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