Felting by Hannes Kivits
Programming by Alexey Grachev
Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky pondered a question: “Am I a trembling creature or have I the right?” This installation answers positively both parts of this compound question: Yes, you are a trembling creature, and yes, you have the right… to tremble from any change in the world around you as do these hats felted by the Estonian artist … and set into moving or, rather, into trembling by any motion or gesture of the viewer. Perhaps, they literally follow the mandate of the Apostle Paul and “work out their salvation with fear and trembling”. Or they remind us that life is movement unlike, for instance, immovable stones above the Arctic Circle that, ironically, served as an inspiration for this work.
Anna Frants is an internationally known media artist and curator. She graduated from Baron Stieglitz St. Petersburg Academy of Art & Industry and also studied at Pratt Institute School of Advanced Studies in New York.
Anna Frants’ interactive art installations have been exhibited at top venues across the world. Recent highlights from 2009 until the present time include exhibiting in the St. Petersburg Biennial, Moscow Biennial and Polish Biennial, Kuoseino Sato Museum of Contemporary Art (Fukuoka, Japan), The Museum of Art and Design (New York, USA), The State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Chelsea Art Museum (New York, USA), RSProjects (Berlin, Germany), VAP / Gogolfest (Kiev, Ukraine) and Transmediale (Berlin, Germany) as well as participating in a 17 day expedition to The Arctic Circle with The Farm Foundation of Arts and Sciences.
Frants is represented by Borey Gallery (St. Petersburg, Russia), Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery (Brooklyn, USA & Berlin, Germany) and Barbarian Gallery (Zurich, Switzerland). Her works can be found in collections of Museum of Art and Design (New York, USA), Kolodzei Art Foundation (New York, USA), Sergey Kuryokhin Center for Modern Art (St. Petersburg, Russia) and private collections.