The artistic saga of Paul Fryer is far from orthodox: after dropping out of Leeds College Of Art in the 80s, he became an electro-pop singer and transvestite DJ. In the early 90s he was the co-creator of the famous Kit Cat Club and of The Vague in Leeds. After moving to London, he started designing books and other printed materials for artists, fashion houses and record labels, while working as technical consultant for several contemporary artists. He wrote a book of poetry, Don’t Be So…, illustrated by Damien Hirst and published by Trolley Books in 2001. When he decided to go back to art, his vast and varied knowledge – which comprises both Christian Gnosticism and cutting-edge scientific research – pushed him towards the unimaginable goal of producing a mini-star in a jar, a “tiny nuclear furnace held in place by the mysterious forces of electrostatic confinement, a ball of incandescent elemental gas stripped of its electrons”, for which he worked in close collaboration with physicist and engineer Colin Dancer.
At the Gucci Museum in Florence Fryer is presenting two painfully realistic sculptures of a dead Christ (Pietà) on an electric chair (on a scale slightly smaller than real) and of a drowned Ophelia, floating in a water tank, plus a mysterious egg suspended on a crown of thorns, entitled Ecce Homo. The human sculptures convey a sense of frailty and brutalized innocence, their tortured realism almost unbearable. Those who missed the opening can visit the exhibition at the Gucci Museum at Piazza della Signoria 10, Florence, until November 2012.
(Chiara Leoni)
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until November 2012
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Paul Fryer, Ecce Homo, 2005
Paul Fryer, Ecce Homo, 2005
Paul Fryer, Ophelia, 2007
Paul Fryer, Ophelia, 2007
Paul Fryer, Ophelia, 2007
Paul Fryer, Pietà (The Empire Never Ended), 2007
Paul Fryer, Pietà (The Empire Never Ended), 2007
Paul Fryer, Pietà (The Empire Never Ended), 2007
All works – Courtesy of Gucci
