Ossian Fraser
Dissolving Acts
24 February - 6 April 2024
Quiet observations and unusual settings, poetic remapping and divergent perspectives, attitude and restraint. These underlying principles are also at the core of Ossian Fraser’s conception of the exhibition at nouveaux deuxdeux. In this way, Fraser succeeds in bringing various antagonistic levels of meaning to resonate (silently) with each other. Uncovering these layers requires a slow understanding, a dialogical decoding, to circumscribe the areas of our existence that are not easy to verbalize — this darned contradictory human condition.
Fraser himself slowly navigates his way towards his images — in urban or natural environments — through his interventions. For these usually fleeting and occasionally permanent in situ works, the artist needs only a few tools and hardly any materials — but always more time than the famous photographic moment. These images are not a “momentary lesson;” they extend the instant to accentuate the sculptural “action,” the underlying progression. Thus the drying up of a puddle, the circling of a light, the rotation of an object, the falling of snowflakes, or the formation of dust circles become subject matter. All these acts arise from the perspective of their photographic documentation, yet they are always real and (remain) visible on site. In the interplay of photographic precision and minimal material, Fraser sensitively focuses on capturing these processes of change and thereby assumes a hybrid position between sculpture and classical photography. Consequently, his images inevitably bring together the most diverse temporal horizons. Captured in the photographic moment are the movement of a star, the melting of snow, the multiperspective rotation of an object, a fleeting intervention, or the laborious removal of longstanding residue.
This fascinating interplay with contrasts continues within the images themselves. Here, Fraser’s meticulous interventions, geometric markings, and actions stand in contrast to the settings he encounters. His circles, squares, and quadrilateral wall pieces are fundamentally human “land measurements” that nudge us viewers into mental dilemmas. How does geometric order function within urban chaos? What does a square represent on a rocky surface? Or dust particles against celestial clouds? What does the circular cutout of a white cube reveal? Can form less matter become a precise image? How does human determination interact with chaotic chance? In this conceptual and imaginative back-and-forth, Fraser’s utopian delight in pictorial experimentation becomes clear, as does his convincing belief in the unchartered territory of photography which he explores through his interventions. By the forgoing of exuberant gestures and excessive material, Fraser’s determination and focus, the complex simplicity of his work processes, and the quiet conviction and consequence of his images all come to the fore. Not only acting, nor completely dissolving. Dissolving Acts.
- Text by Christian Ganzenberg
Ossian Fraser, born in 1983 in Edinburgh, lives and works in Munich and Berlin.
He studied fine arts and sculpture at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Bonn from 2006 until 2009 and at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule in Berlin from 2009 until 2013, completing his education in Albrecht Schäfer’s master class in 2013–2014. Fraser received scholarships from the Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn and the Erwin und Gisela von Steiner-Stiftung and was a resident at the Artist Residency 2735 in Switzerland.
His works have been exhibited, among others, at the Kunstverein München (2023), the Kunsthaus Erfurt (2023), the Museum für Kunst in Rockenhausen (2022), the Galerie der Künstler*innen in Munich (2022), the Kunstverein Arnsberg (2015, 2020, and 2021), the KINDL - Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin (2018), and the Fotohof Salzburg (2013).
He is a co-founder of Salon am Moritzplatz, a project space for social and cultural exchange in the center of Berlin.