VIKTOR FREYDENBERG
Artist, Designer, Photographer. He was born in 1966. Lives and works in Moscow.
He worked in workshops of legendary art squats and cultural centers:
1988 – 1989 — Furmanny Lane, Moscow
1991 – 1993 — Trekhprudny Lane, Moscow
2002 – 2003 — „Tacheles“, Berlin
2004 – 2009 — Art-Strelka, Moscow
2015 – 2017 — Dukley Art Center, Kotor
From 1988 to 2017 — the author of more than 40 personal and participant of more than 50 international group exhibitions and festivals in the field of art and design, including the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and Architecture.
Was awarded with honorary signs — „High Design“, „Designer of the Year“. The first in Russia holder of the international award for innovative industrial design — „Red Dot Design Award“ in the Product Design category.
Participant of the art projects — „Gallery on Trekhprudny“, „Reclamation“, „Artkliazma“, „Believe“. Nominee for the Kandinsky Prize.
Working in the field of contemporary art, in his own experimental sintetic style, Freydenberg creates pictures, photographs and videos, objects, installations and spaces that have new aesthetic, conceptual and emotional qualities. Such works are innovative, minimalistic, they carry in themselves the clear beauty of the idea, the originality of technology and the elegant simplicity of the embodiment.
Photo project 016 „WATERLINE or Abstract Realism“
It’s always amazing to see, to discover in something ordinary and long
familiar, something new, unusual, or even, perhaps, previously unnoticed. In the photo project „Waterline“ I was able to capture that, which in reality, looks more like an avant-garde painting than reality itself. Abstract images that appear at first glance painted, or „created“, are in fact, nothing more than the real waterlines of ships, yachts and boats of all sizes and from all countries. Photographed in different light and from certain angles, close-up fragments of these lines on the border with the water create a complicated reflection that prevents the wandering eye from focusing on any particular image. As a result, I am not simply taking pictures of an object in its environment and the play of light and color, but I define the environment that includes the object and reacts to its presence. Colored lines once painted on the multi-colored sides of ageing vessels with traces of salty water and their reflection in the water – it is a borderline of two elements, where you can observe paradoxical picture-signs, sending your intrigued minds, either to the avant-garde paintings of Malevich or they see a variety of flags of non-existent countries and some sort of mysterious scenic landscapes. In fact: the top part is a minimalist, static geometry, and the bottom a smooth unpredictable moving ripple. The reflections and glimmers, sliding over the surface are re-reflected, further distorting the space and creating a sense of presence in these simple photo documents of diversity and depth. The surface of the water, which is the natural horizon, here turns it into a fantasy skyline, enticing our fascinated consciousness on a journey of imagination.