PIA FRIES

Miles McEnery Gallery is pleased to announce heliopedi, an exhibition of paintings by Pia Fries, on view 7 September through 21 October 2023 at 515 West 22nd Street. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication featuring an essay by Christopher Bedford.

In this cycle of paintings—which spans 18 years—Fries holds freedom and limits in taut balance. Vigorous gestural abstraction and razor-sharp precision of line are intertwined. Fragmented and enlarged, 17th century etchings—fractions of the male form by Dutch engraver Hendrick Goltzius, and flora and fauna by German entomologist and botanical illustrator, Maria Sibylla Merian—appear repeatedly in the compositions on view, peeking out from Fries’ own bold and decisive sweeps of oil paint.

“We discover a new wildness of material, image and meaning in Fries’ paintings,” writes Christopher Bedford in the catalogue essay, “Fries is interested in describing something new—a new type of painting more grounded in discovery than in either abstract or representational. Her paintings are both, and she refuses to choose.”

Pia Fries (b. 1955, Beromünster, Switzerland) attended the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland, before studying under Gerhard Richter at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. From 2014 to 2023, Fries held a professorship at Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts.

Over the course of her nearly four-decade career, Fries has exhibited internationally at numerous institutions and galleries. In 1999, her work was included in the 48th Venice Biennale exhibition, dAPERTutto, curated by Harald Szeemann. Notable solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland; Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Germany; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany; Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Germany; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland, and elsewhere.

Fries’ work is held in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland; Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; Neues Museum Nürnberg, Germany; Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany; and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, among others.

Fries lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany and Lucerne, Switzerland.

Download PDF

heliopedi

Installation Views

Selected Works

Press Release