Luca Frei
Folds – Spreads
Opening Saturday, May 10th, 13 – 16 p.m.
10 May – 29 June
Closed Midsummer weekend June 20 – 22
On May 10, the last exhibition of the spring opens in Krognoshuset, and the art association Aura is pleased to present the artist Luca Frei. The works in the exhibition, which is Luca Frei's second solo exhibition in Lund, all find their place on one of the three floors of the medieval house.
Luca Frei, currently based in Malmö, is known for his work with installation, sculpture and form, and has over the past two years increasingly anchored his practice in textile expression. His work often revolves around how textiles have been traditionally used, while also exploring their down-to-earth aesthetic expression. The exhibition at Krognoshuset shows a new series of textile works, produced between 2024 and 2025, in which pieces of fabric such as linen, cotton and canvas have been sewn together by hand, hung or folded. Some materials are newly acquired, others found or reused.
Several of the works in the exhibition were produced during Frei's stay as an IASPIS fellow at AIT Tokyo in Japan from September to November 2024. In her current textile practice, the artist is not dependent on a fixed studio location, but the work can be both started and completed from home or on the go, on a table or directly on the floor, indoors or outdoors. The textile works can be carried, folded and opened to be placed in a new location.
– I started carrying them in a suitcase, says Frei, in this way they function as a form of portable documentation, which changes through folding and movement.
Luca Frei describes one of his approaches as soft cutting, where he folds the fabric instead of cutting it, which preserves the integrity of the material while the artist determines the shape. It creates a temporary change instead of the definitive one that cutting the fabric would entail. The original folds that occurred when the fabric was folded for sale and transport are retained:
– By using these temporary marks as a structural grid, I preserve a passage of time, from commercial context to artistic material, says Luca Frei.
The exhibition's design also follows this approach to changeability and the materials' own conditions. Some textiles hang freely on the wall, others lie folded on shelves, as if waiting to be put to use – without clearly distinguishing archive from action.
Over the years he has collaborated with several artists, including Runo Lagomarsino, Malmö, who wrote the essay for Frei's exhibition at Krognoshuset. Think of me when you can. The title, which is taken from a line in Ettore Scola's film A very special day from 1977, gives an association to everyday actions in a politically charged time. The essay describes the material as follows: “The textiles are not static; they suggest movement, both literal and figurative, and bear traces of work, history and touch… They speak and they speak in several languages at once.”
Runo Lagomarsino's essay is reproduced, together with Frei's own text about his work, in a printed publication specially produced by the artist for this exhibition, which is available in the Krognoshuset.
About the artist:
Luca Frei is also currently working on a new public work in Hyllie, Malmö. His latest solo exhibitions include Guiding Fabric at Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin (2024), working spacing moving at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Belgium (2021), and From Day to Day at Malmö Konsthall (2020). He has designed exhibitions for, among others, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Tensta Konsthall, Malmö Konstmuseum and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Between 2015 and 2021 he was a lecturer at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and has led workshops at, among others, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and NABA in Milan.
For more info:
Website: www.lucafrei.info
Instagram: @luca__frei
Photo: Luc Frei, Pockets, 2024
For availability, see website www.krognoshuset.se
Krognoshuset is run with the support of Lund Municipality and the Culture Council