NOW- Jane McAdam Freud: in partnership with Gazelli Art House London
The exhibition of artist Jane McAdam Freud presents a body of works created during her residency at Harrow School, which took place from September 2015 to July 2017. The large quantity of high-quality art produced during that time formed the basis of an impressive selection of artworks. The exhibition at Galeria Jecza adopts the title of the piece "Now," belonging to the "shelters" series. McAdam Freud speaks about the present as a refuge that we all should inhabit. In an interview I conducted with Jane in January 2018, she told me that her most important works are "the ones I create now. The present is my favorite moment. If you are truly alive, you can only live in the present."
Through the works at Galeria Jecza, Jane approaches the ready-made in her unique and original manner. She sees the artistic act as a researcher engaged in a case study. Conceptualizing external events, she acts through her art like a psychoanalyst approaching objects as in a psychotherapy session. Following the concepts of her great-grandfather, Sigmund Freud, specifically those related to the revelation of the unconscious, her intention is to bring to light the hidden or ignored parts. The remarkable history of one of the oldest and most prestigious boys' educational institutions in Great Britain has been both a source of inspiration and a challenge for Jane. Her approach follows the Duchampian appropriation model. Moreover, by intervening with these objects, she takes possession of them symbolically. Through an instinctive attitude that suppresses any conscious and predetermined plan, Jane creates conceptual works that communicate with the viewer on two levels: instructive and subliminal. The theme of self-analysis/identity is one of the most frequently addressed and intriguing issues in her artistic approach, which appears to be an essential form of self-encounter.
At Harrow, the furniture and other small objects left in the studio she used for two years seemed to be imbued with the old traditions of artistic practice, prompting Jane to reconsider Adornian theories related to the autonomy of art in relation to the cultural industry. Everything in the studio could become an art object, even the metal scraps, piles of rust, old easels, or discarded canvases after being painted. The relationship between the two traditional modes of artistic expression, sculpture, and painting, is questioned by creating sculptural installations using objects specific to painting (Am I Fixed Yet?, High Chair).
On the other hand, in works such as Plan, Draw, Top End, or Object Conversation, she operated with methods of conceptual art, inscribing meaningful words on the surfaces of objects to confront her own thoughts with her own actions or to give a physical representation to an idea (closely related to Sigmund Freud's theory of things).
For Jane, objects have their own existence, and her interventions aim only to give them new and surprising meanings. Thus, arranging a few empty colored projectile casings together with a classical marble torso in a wooden frame (You Kill Me) becomes a statement of the role of Harrow as a muse for the artist.
Introductory text by Maria Orosan-Telea
The exhibition is realized in partnership with Gazelli Art House London and supported by Timișoara - European Capital of Culture Association.
Biography:
Jane McAdam Freud MA-RCA, FRBS is represented in the major public collections at home and abroad. Her 55 solo exhibitions include retrospectives at the Wooyang Contemporary Art Museum, Gyeongju-si, South Korea and at the Freud Museum London. In 2014 along with Annie Leibovitz McAdam Freud won the European Trebbia award for achievement in the arts.
McAdam Freud studied at the Royal College of Art, London under the supervision of John Stetzeker and Edwardo Paolozzi both of who have had an influence on her work.
Jane has lectured at the major London art school including the Royal College of Art and the University of the Arts where she continues to teach on the Carving and Casting project.
Having published several papers on her works, Jane McAdam Freud focus is on ‘origins’ both in a personal and universal sense and in this sense her works are conceptually informed by psychoanalytic theory.
She is currently ‘artist in residence’ at the psychiatric hospital in Genoa, which culminates in December with a two-part exhibition titled Woman as Taboo. Part 1 will be held at the Palazzo Ducale and the other at the Institute of Unknown Materials and Forms, Genoa.