Upstream Focus - Alicia Framis

A L IC I A FR A MIS

Departures

29 May- 05 June 2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Upstream Gallery presents Upstream Focus, a series of single work exhibitions in our private viewing space. Every week we will highlight the work of one artist, both online as well as offline. The work is to be visited solely by appointment. Book your own timeslot, free of charge, via info@upstreamgallery.nl.

The fourth Upstream Focus is Alicia Framis’ Depatures (Triton City). In this document we will dive deep into this work and the artist.

Departures (Triton City), 2015 Engraved stainless steel 125 x 82

With Departures, Alicia Framis theorizes the position of a traveler embarking on a voyage to an imaginary city. Using the visual language of airport terminal departure boards, Framis evokes the anxiety-fueled, escapist energy of spaces where we find ourselves in transit; the flights range from boarding, on time, delayed, to cancelled. Valhalla, Narnia, Odyssey, and Atlantis are a few of the destinations that have been drawn from historical works of philosophy, religion, science fiction, film, and the artist’s own imagination. Departures lays bare how everyday practicalities both fuel and inhibit our ability to lose ourselves to alternate worlds.

Framis’ Departures obtains special relevance during the current COVID-19 pandemic. The work questions our location of departure as well as our location of arrival in a period when many of us are in quarantine at home. Where do we go in such times? In a globalized, digitalized and constantly-on-the-move world, how does our concept of home change?

Alicia Framis Alicia Framis (Barcelona, 1967) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice blends architecture, design, fashion and performance. Her work is project based and focuses on different aspects of human existence within contemporary urban society. Framis often starts out from actual social dilemmas to develop novel settings and proposed solutions.

She develops platforms for creative social interaction, often through interdisciplinary collaboration with other artists and specialists across various fields.

Alicia Framis studied at the Barcelona University and the École de Beaux Arts in Paris. She completed two masters programs, one at the Institut d’Hautes Etudes, Paris and another at Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. Framis won the Prix Lleida Contemporary Art, Spain (2000) and the Prix de Rome, Italy (1997). Her work is included in numerous permanent collections, including those of Collection FRAC Lorraine (France), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Switzerland), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (Netherlands), MUSAC de Castilla y Léon (Spain), Rabo Art Collection (Netherlands), Stedelijk Museum Collection (Netherlands), Avalon Park (New York, USA) among others.

Further reading Framis’ Departues will also feature in Unlocked / Reconnected - an initiative that brings together a wide range of ‘houses for art’: museums, institutes for presentation, galleries, artists’ initiatives and corporate collections. Website: www.unlockedreconnected.nl - Instragram: @ unlockedreconnected FRAMIS ALICIA FRAMIS: works from 1995-2003.

Perfomance Forbidden People (2017). Video here.

Stedelijk Statements with Alicia Framis. Video here.

Kloveniersburgwal 95 1011 KB Amsterdam t. +31 (0)20 4284284 e. info@upstreamgallery.nl