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DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park
Current Exhibitions

Chris Frost

Chris Frost

Municipile

In Municipile, familiar local buildings tumble about, free of their usual static state. Chris Frost includes a variety of architectural styles as well as recognizable landmarks such as Boston’s South Station, Cambridge City Hall, and the DeCordova Museum. He chooses a different scale for each building, disengaging the connection often made between size and importance. A small Victorian house, for example, can loom above what normally would be a much larger civic building. This odd mixture of structures comments on the diversity that makes up a city or region. Because of Frost’s meticulous craftsmanship, the lack of consistent scale, and the unifying color and material, the buildings can also be interpreted as purely geometric forms dynamically arrayed on a supporting steel armature. All four O-scale Trainscape trains pass through Municipile, which acts as the rail hub for the entire exhibition. The artist has placed additional trains, of different scales, within Municipile itself. These trains add complexity to the relationships among the differently-scaled buildings and further activate the installation with their motion.

Chris Frost’s work explores the common object through his creative play with material, scale, juxtaposition, and context. Encountering the ordinary (be it a hat, fish or castle) through a new perspective can create unexpected, humorous, and often dynamic interpretations. Interested in the historical dimensions of a site, Frost often incorporates themes of time, memory and place into his site-specific works.

Image: Chris Frost, Municipile, (detail), 2007, Lent by the Artist

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