Max Frisinger

PENEDO
curated by KRSTO
→ May 23, 2023

Working across two sites in Mexico as his playground and source of the entirety of the materials used in and for the works presented, PENEDO is the result of a two-phase scavenger hunt carried out by Frisinger. From crowded markets in Mexico City to industrial scrapyards in Monterrey, Frisinger’s journey is motivated by a belief and comprehension of the ‘found’, the idea that everything his works need, already exists and more so, the addition of a quality otherwise impossible to acquire: history. In this sense, Frisinger acts as an obsessive gatherer to portray in his finds the cartography of an entire site and culture, placing materials scattered all over a city, in a form that feels as if they’ve ultimately arrived. An expansive timeframe takes place through the infinite possibilities between the then and now of these materials’ stories.

Entering the gallery, a totem sculpture of piled heavy machinery tires greets the visitors and stands as a reference to temple architecture, hints at ancient columns’ characteristic ‘entasis’. In these tires, usage transformed into wear, and rubber turned to stone, a quality that alludes to the exhibition’s title PENEDO, the Portuguese word for boulder or rock, as well as the name of the village where Frisinger lives in Portugal.

Inversely, the first gallery room shows the work derived from the second phase of Frisinger’s production. An installation of various steel and aluminum scraps hangs from the ceiling; rescued from a junkyard, in a composition resembling a small house, a vividly colored container was torn apart with the help of crane drivers and their technique, sculpting it into individual pieces that are now fitted into the gallery’s space, designed especially for the room, and challenge the usual gravity of the same.

As visitors enter the second gallery room, they will run into dozens of mesmerizing small-scale sculptures. Each of these works watches, communicates and invites the audience to discover their individual presences, formats and energies. In this new format, Frisinger brings together materials from distinct origins and unknown backgrounds into a final piece where each part, once individual, becomes a whole, conjuring in each a seeming moment of stillness.

The pieces - their individual parts and bits - find, in being found, their last destination as singular pieces of material. They’ve been around everywhere and now become intertwined with these other materials, a story of evolution from singular in one to singular in collectiveness. In this way, materials have a life of their own, thus essentially concocting rightly balanced combinations with the precise level of attraction between each.

Each of this permanent voyeurs, in their own physical and intangible form, inhabit spaces and become figures that the artist creates a relationship towards and devises a relationship between the works’ DNA and heritage, finding situations in each pairing or group; each have their own wisdom, and once the combination for them is determined, it becomes clear who is who. One does not get a name by the promise of existence but by existing.

Frisinger’s works transcend the physical realm and pull the viewer into the several unwritten, common understandings of both the works and life. There is a certain beauty the information, history or wear found objects carry with them, they still recount a story within their surface, one that can be physically experienced even if not consciously known. In this way, one lets go of the questions that narrows their capacity as a recipient and instead, opens up the possibilities for projections or interpretations within these several stories that overlap each other and become one in a new setting, leaving the origin story behind to pertain a new communication. Materials travel and come together in a solidification better than imaginable - a completeness.

By the result, one can see an entire life, condensed within these creations that can stand as a chess piece, a trophy, a divine portal, a deity to be worshipped, a companion and so on.

Colector.