Andy Freeberg's GUARDIANS Exhibition Opens at Andrea Meislin Gallery Today

Andrea Meislin Gallery has announced Andy Freeberg's first solo exhibition at the gallery. Guardians will be on view today, January 24th through March 2nd, 2013, with the opening reception tonight, January 24th, from 6 - 8pm.

Freeberg is a keen observer of environments where art and people co-exist. After photographing reception desks of Chelsea galleries in Sentry, and the booths of art dealers at international fairs in Art Fare, Freeberg takes us to Russia's great art museums - the Hermitage and the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Pushkin Museum and State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow - where retirement-aged women guard National Treasures.

In 2008, Freeberg set out to investigate Russia's evolution since his last visit there in the 1980s, but found himself intrigued by the women scattered throughout the museums, seated among the country's great works of art. Unable to separate his experience of the art from his experience of the place - an environment so deeply impacted by the presence of the women - Freeberg took out his camera.

Using a 35-millimeter camera in order to remain inconspicuous while wandering the museums - Freeberg shot these photographs without directing the women. He printed the images in a large size, some as wide as five feet. The photographs invite the viewer to enjoy the museums as he did - taking in not only the painting or sculpture, but also the relationship between the work of art and its guardian.

In Kugach's Before the Dance, State Tretyakov Gallery, 2009, the guard's posture mimics that of the women in the painting. Wearing a long skirt, and seated with hands folded in her lap, she too, is demur and looks as though she could be waiting for an invitation to dance. In Matisse Still Life, Hermitage Museum, 2008, the guard's sweater is in harmony with the Matisse in both hue and design. Even a hint of her patterned stocking recalls the lively forms in the painting.