THE SPYFROST PROJECT

DAVID TRAUTRIMAS

FROM APRIL 28TH TO MAY 30TH
OPENING APRIL 30TH, 2010 FROM 7-10PM

In The Spyfrost Project, photographer David Trautrimas hypothesizes the origins of iconic modern appliances by reassembling them into top secret, Cold War era military outposts. These skunkwork structures, hybrids of both machinery and architecture, stand as colossal weaponized ancestors to common objects such as refrigerators, lawnmowers and washing machines. Fashioned with aspiring futurism, yet an ominous sense of militaristic purpose, these installations link the parallel development of capitalism’s postwar consumer culture and the Military Industrial Complex.

Balanced between the promised utopian culture of leisure, facilitated by what the latest in modern manufacturing had to offer and the threat of a global catastrophe wrought by ICBM’s, super sonic jet fighters, and spy satellites, this series elicits the tense equilibrium between the extremes of design and technology during the Cold War era. Critical to these works is the representation of both forces within each composition, as these devices of destruction are assembled from the very appliances that promised deliverance to a post WWII paradise. As Nixon said to Khrushchev at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959, “… would it not be better to compete in the relative merits of washing machines than in the strength of rockets?” Within this series the consumerism vs. militarism conflict is expressed as an inextricable paradox within each composition.

Trautrimas continues to experience success with his accomplished and sophisticated approach to utilize digital technologies in the fine art world. His work will be featured in the upcoming Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art exhibition, Empire of Dreams, Phenomenology of the built environment, curated by David Liss, as well as included in Brave New World at the Queensland Center for Photography in Brisbane Australia. The series will also be exhibited at the Eckhart Gallery in the Hague, Netherlands, Johansson Projects in Oakland California and be featured at photoLA and Art Chicago. Trautrimas has been featured or reviewed in print and online press in Canada, the US, Germany, the Ukraine, Russia, and China.