Family Portrait
photo Lee Stals worth, collection of
1
lirshhorn Muséum and Sculpture Garden
/Red Buddha
photo Joseph Rudinec, collection of Butler Institute of American Art.
Frey was a brash, confident draftsman, with the chops fo r everything
from impressionistic dabs to slashing silhouettes, funky brushwork
and a hopped-up wiggly line that riff's on 18 th -century porcelain.
grew larger, their surfaces shifted from
painterly naturalism in muted tones to a
deeply textured, stark white glaze brushed
with sharp blue, acid yellow, and angry or-
anges and reds. Frey’s vocabulary of form
was equally broad, embracing a range of
exuberant, multifarious works often de-
scribed as bricolage—sculptures and plates
that combine a dizzying array of imagery,
and large groups o f assembled figures—
alongside the elemental giant statues.
Frey’s work is full of seeming contradic-
tions. The giant figures with their enigmatic
expressions are obvious to the point of be-
ing (lier word) dumb, while the paintings
and bricolage pieces are witty and open-end-
ed. Her subject matter is avowedly autobio-
graphical, and yet many of the images take
on mythic stature: Mr. and Mrs. Everyman
imbued with the aura of Greek
kouroi.
She
piled realistically molded dolls and figurines
into illogical, confusing abstractions, tossing
them like word salad. Although Frey viewed
her work as a totality, its connective tissues
are not immediately apparent. Perhaps most
fundamental is her obsession with figurines,
which spilled out of the corners of her Oak-
land home and studio. She loved their emo-
tional resonance, and favorites occur again
and again: a rooster, a jointed male doll, a
skeleton and a baseball player, among others.
In Frey’s paintings the figurines and sculp-
tures in her studio come to life, jostling one
another in a tumult of chaotic energy. The
figurines reflect Frey’s democratic impulse,
in which sentimental knickknacks hold
their own alongside large-scale, “serious”
sculpture. I don’t sense a jot of irony in
Frey’s approach to these goofy figurines;
I think she respected their dignity. The figu-
rines in
Family Portrait,
1995, for example,
read as emblems of emotion as well as per-
sonages in their own right. In Frey’s world,
they are simply part of the family.
The video playing in the gallery, while
insightful and well put together, left an un-
Opposite:
Double Self,
1978,
ceramic with glazes,
left,
61V2
x 18% x 17 in.
Left:
Family Portait,
1995
ceramic with glazes,
84 x 82V8 x 34V8 in.
Below:
Red Buddha,
1994,
ceramic with glazes,
25 x 25 x 6 in.
fortunate impression of Frey as a misunder-
stood, even tragic figure. Having watched
this, I found myself dredging up psycho-
drama in the repeated images of men loom-
ing in doorways and the huge, melancholy
nude
Weeping Woman,
1990-91—an impulse
I resented. Frey’s work evokes a wide spec-
trum of emotion, from fury to profound
love. Her complex achievement transcends
the particulars of mere personal history.
Jody Clowes is a curator and writer from
Madison,
IFf.
*
Co-organized by the Racine Art Museum
with the Gardiner Museum, Toronto, the
exhibition is on view at the Gardiner, Sept.
10,2009-Jan. 10,2010, and travels to the
Museum of Arts and Design, New York
City, Feb. 3-May 30,2010, and the Arkansas
Arts Center, Little Rock, Aug. 13-Dec. 5,
2010. The 134-page catalog is $50 hardcover,
$30 softcover.
dec/jan 10 american craft 035
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