ANNA FRANTS. BAKLUSHAS OR FRITTERING AWAY BRAHMS

BAKLUSHAS or Frittering Away Brahms by Anna Frants and CYLAND MediaArtLab. Media installation. From the series “Nothing to do”. Holography, robotics, wood blocks, 2021.

🗓️June 29 — July 7, 2024

ALEXANDER GALLERY

📍Rose Montenegro, Lustica 85321 Montenegro

◆Anna Frants: Baklushas or Frittering Away Brahms◆

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Opening — June 29 🕒 6:30pm

BAKLUSHAS or Frittering Away Brahms
by Anna Frants and CYLAND MediaArtLab
Media installation
From the series “Nothing to do”
Holography, robotics, wood blocks, 2021

CYLAND is pleased to announce the exhibition BAKLUSHAS or Frittering Away Brahms, on view from June 29 to July 7, 2024, at Alexander Gallery, Rose, Montenegro. The exhibition features a recent media installation by Anna Frants, an internationally acclaimed new media artist, curator, and art writer, founder of the CYLAND Media Art Lab and the CYLAND Foundation.

Nowadays, the expression “beating baklushas” (which translates into English as “frittering away time”) means idleness or doing nothing, though originally it referred to work — the making of rough blocks (baklushas) for wooden spoons. This work was neither difficult nor glamorous, and it was carried out by apprentices and even children, but it was work nevertheless. In the installation of Anna Frants, the baklushas themselves do the work: they beat out a rhythm, following a lead of the invisible orchestra that plays Hungarian Dance No. 5 by Johannes Brahms under the baton of the holographic conductor. They continue to beat out the rhythm even after the music stops. This could be interpreted as the applause or as the continuation of creative process. One should not forget that doing nothingness could be sweet (dolce far niente), that those who beat baklushas are keeping company to Lotus Eaters from the Odyssey, Oblomov from Goncharov’s novel of the same name and other idle dreamers and that idleness, unlike physical labor, includes the proclivity for reflection and contemplation.

Anna Frants is an artist, curator in the field of media art. She graduated from the Vera Mukhina Higher School of Art and Design (Leningrad, USSR) and Pratt Institute (New York, USA). Founder of the nonprofit cultural foundation Cyland Foundation Inc. Cofounder of CYLAND MediaArtLab and CYFEST. Frants’ interactive installations have been showcased at Museum of Art and Design (New York, USA), Video Guerrilha Festival (Brazil), Manifesta 10 Biennale (2014, St. Petersburg, Russia), Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Chelsea Art Museum (New York, USA), Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin, Germany), Hatcham Church Gallery, Goldsmiths, University of London (UK), Dartington Estate (UK), Ca’ Foscari Zattere Cultural Flow Zone (Venice, Italy), MAXXI Museum (Rome, Italy), National Arts Club (New York, USA) and at other major venues all over the world. The artist’s works are held in the collections of the Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Museum of Art and Design (New York, USA), Sergey Kuryokhin Center for Modern Art (St. Petersburg, Russia) and Kolodzei Art Foundation (New York, USA) as well as in numerous private collections. She lives and works in Miami, USA.