Peter Friedl
04 Mar - 06 Jun 2010
PETER FRIEDL
March 04th - June 06th, 2010
Curator: Leire Vergara
sala rekalde presents a solo show by Berlin-based artist Peter Friedl. The exhibition consists of a selection of recent works, ongoing projects and the premiere of his latest film installation.
The work of Peter Friedl is rooted in a strong engagement with the study of specific conditions and diverse genres of representation. His works offer models of exemplary articulation of aesthetic problems, involving political and historical consciousness.
The organisational systems that Peter Friedl applies to some of his projects correspond to a methodology based on a precise alphabetical order or a chronological disposition of the material that generates new specific forms of narration. This is evident in Playgrounds and Theory of Justice, two ongoing projects that structure the exhibition within a broader temporal framework of production.
In Playgrounds (started in 1995), Peter Friedl focuses on the representation of childhood and the playground as one of its most relevant global typologies. This installation, based on a multi-wall-projection of digitalised slides photographed by the artist, reveals a set of similarities regarding the design conceptions for the playgrounds, even though the images have been taken at different moments and belong to many diverse social and geographical contexts.
Theory of Justice (initiated in 1992) is based on a collection of images, extracted from diverse newspapers and magazines, that are shown in specifically designed showcases. The organisation of the material follows a special order that is based on the chronology of what is depicted rather than the actual date of its publication. The title of this work refers to the attempt at renewing social contract theory undertaken by U.S. philosopher John Rawls. Opposed to Rawls conception of a society based on agreement and justice, the images collected in this archival project show a reality where conflict takes the place of consensus.
The related disposition of works such as Tiger oder Löwe (2000), Untitled (Berlin), 1996-2007 and Kill & Go (1995) stands in a somewhat transitional space in the entrance of the main gallery at sala rekalde.
Tiger oder Löwe (Tiger or Lion), is a short video filmed within one of the rooms of the Hamburger Kunsthalle where a live tiger fights with a stuffed snake. This scene is inspired by a specific painting entitled Tiger and Snake (1858) by Eugène Delacroix, which in fact belongs to the collection of the Kunsthalle. This short video is recorded within the same room where the painting is regularly exhibited. However, the film shows something that the painting is unable to offer within the frozen moment that it depicts. By this gesture of actualising the movement that Delacroix’s painting anticipates, Friedl’s film puts two forms of aesthetics into dialogue through a little epic theatre drama.
In Untitled (Berlin) (1996-2007) a photograph taken by the artist in 1996 is transferred 10 years later into the format of a giant poster. The image shows some graffiti on a wall in Berlin which reads: “Pigs, be careful! This is not Cologne”. The message refers to the specific milieu of the German art-world of the late 90s. However, rather than tracing the details of this local conflict as the main narrative, the blown-up image invites us to navigate through the unexpected accidents that randomly crept into the depicted scene.
The work Kill & Go is introduced in this grouping as documentation of a public project that Peter Friedl developed on the media wall at the Europaplatz in Vienna in 1995. The written statement “KILL AND GO” flickered for a four-minute phase during two months. The message inserted within the flow of regular advertising media signalled a rather speechless strategy of addressing the passers-by.
Three recent videos stand together as the core works in the main exhibition space at sala rekalde. These works explore the reactivation of history recovered from past imageries.
In his video Liberty City (2007), Peter Friedl addresses a historical episode of urban racism. On the night of 17th December 1979, the (black) motorcyclist Arthur McDuffie was stopped by (white) cops on the corner of North Miami Avenue and 38th Street and beaten to death. In Friedl’s nocturnal scene, staged and filmed on site, the (white) cop is beaten up. The looped and uncut sequence appears as if filmed by an eyewitness. The film was shot in the streets of the Liberty Square Housing Project, a residential complex built in Miami during the Roosevelt era in the 1930s for African American residents.
The Children (2009) is a video based on the painting entitled Fëmijët (1966) by Albanian socialist realist painter Spiro Kristo (b.1936). For the shooting, the outdoor street scene depicted in the painting was staged as a tableau vivant inside the Hotel Dajti (designed by one of the Italian colonial architects during the Fascist occupation), in one of its former ground-floor salons in particular. It is a short and mostly silent pictorial meditation or gesture (looped), a melancholic greeting to Brecht’s Street Scene. The only piece of text is spoken in voice off by one of the girls. It is the Albanian translation of “The image should stand out from the frame”. That advice was given by the elderly Francisco Pacheco – official censor of Seville's Inquisition & author of Arte de la pintura: su antigüedad y grandeza – to his pupil (and son-in-law) Diego Velázquez. Foucault quoted it in his famous “Las Meninas” essay, which was to become the first chapter of Les mots et les choses (in 1966).
Bilbao Song was produced by sala rekalde and filmed at the Serantes Theatre in Santurtzi, near Bilbao, together with professional and non-professional actors, and special guests such as Julen Madariaga (lawyer, politician, historical co-founder of ETA and later member of the social movement Elkarri) and the popular clown duo Pirritx and Porrotx. Using the empty stage as a site of production, Bilbao Song shows different tableaux vivants as fantasmagoric imagery and a complex form of allegory. Friedl takes the painting Henry IV Receiving the Ambassador of Spain (1817) by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as his point of departure. Other images refer to the Basque Painting movement of the interwar period (1915–1939), such as El Paria Castellano by Juan de Echevarria (1917), El Orden by Gustavo de Maeztu (1918–19), Tríptico de la Guerra by Aurelio Arteta (1937), and the painting Soldado y Mulata by Bilbao-born painter and illustrator Víctor Patricio Landaluze, who in 1850 emigrated to Cuba and became a chronicler of Cuban society.
Friedl’s film emphasizes the actual process of image production, which is completed by the only action that takes place on stage: a live interpretation of Bilbao-Song—from the unsuccessful musical comedy Happy End by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht—performed by a pianist and an accordion player.
March 04th - June 06th, 2010
Curator: Leire Vergara
sala rekalde presents a solo show by Berlin-based artist Peter Friedl. The exhibition consists of a selection of recent works, ongoing projects and the premiere of his latest film installation.
The work of Peter Friedl is rooted in a strong engagement with the study of specific conditions and diverse genres of representation. His works offer models of exemplary articulation of aesthetic problems, involving political and historical consciousness.
The organisational systems that Peter Friedl applies to some of his projects correspond to a methodology based on a precise alphabetical order or a chronological disposition of the material that generates new specific forms of narration. This is evident in Playgrounds and Theory of Justice, two ongoing projects that structure the exhibition within a broader temporal framework of production.
In Playgrounds (started in 1995), Peter Friedl focuses on the representation of childhood and the playground as one of its most relevant global typologies. This installation, based on a multi-wall-projection of digitalised slides photographed by the artist, reveals a set of similarities regarding the design conceptions for the playgrounds, even though the images have been taken at different moments and belong to many diverse social and geographical contexts.
Theory of Justice (initiated in 1992) is based on a collection of images, extracted from diverse newspapers and magazines, that are shown in specifically designed showcases. The organisation of the material follows a special order that is based on the chronology of what is depicted rather than the actual date of its publication. The title of this work refers to the attempt at renewing social contract theory undertaken by U.S. philosopher John Rawls. Opposed to Rawls conception of a society based on agreement and justice, the images collected in this archival project show a reality where conflict takes the place of consensus.
The related disposition of works such as Tiger oder Löwe (2000), Untitled (Berlin), 1996-2007 and Kill & Go (1995) stands in a somewhat transitional space in the entrance of the main gallery at sala rekalde.
Tiger oder Löwe (Tiger or Lion), is a short video filmed within one of the rooms of the Hamburger Kunsthalle where a live tiger fights with a stuffed snake. This scene is inspired by a specific painting entitled Tiger and Snake (1858) by Eugène Delacroix, which in fact belongs to the collection of the Kunsthalle. This short video is recorded within the same room where the painting is regularly exhibited. However, the film shows something that the painting is unable to offer within the frozen moment that it depicts. By this gesture of actualising the movement that Delacroix’s painting anticipates, Friedl’s film puts two forms of aesthetics into dialogue through a little epic theatre drama.
In Untitled (Berlin) (1996-2007) a photograph taken by the artist in 1996 is transferred 10 years later into the format of a giant poster. The image shows some graffiti on a wall in Berlin which reads: “Pigs, be careful! This is not Cologne”. The message refers to the specific milieu of the German art-world of the late 90s. However, rather than tracing the details of this local conflict as the main narrative, the blown-up image invites us to navigate through the unexpected accidents that randomly crept into the depicted scene.
The work Kill & Go is introduced in this grouping as documentation of a public project that Peter Friedl developed on the media wall at the Europaplatz in Vienna in 1995. The written statement “KILL AND GO” flickered for a four-minute phase during two months. The message inserted within the flow of regular advertising media signalled a rather speechless strategy of addressing the passers-by.
Three recent videos stand together as the core works in the main exhibition space at sala rekalde. These works explore the reactivation of history recovered from past imageries.
In his video Liberty City (2007), Peter Friedl addresses a historical episode of urban racism. On the night of 17th December 1979, the (black) motorcyclist Arthur McDuffie was stopped by (white) cops on the corner of North Miami Avenue and 38th Street and beaten to death. In Friedl’s nocturnal scene, staged and filmed on site, the (white) cop is beaten up. The looped and uncut sequence appears as if filmed by an eyewitness. The film was shot in the streets of the Liberty Square Housing Project, a residential complex built in Miami during the Roosevelt era in the 1930s for African American residents.
The Children (2009) is a video based on the painting entitled Fëmijët (1966) by Albanian socialist realist painter Spiro Kristo (b.1936). For the shooting, the outdoor street scene depicted in the painting was staged as a tableau vivant inside the Hotel Dajti (designed by one of the Italian colonial architects during the Fascist occupation), in one of its former ground-floor salons in particular. It is a short and mostly silent pictorial meditation or gesture (looped), a melancholic greeting to Brecht’s Street Scene. The only piece of text is spoken in voice off by one of the girls. It is the Albanian translation of “The image should stand out from the frame”. That advice was given by the elderly Francisco Pacheco – official censor of Seville's Inquisition & author of Arte de la pintura: su antigüedad y grandeza – to his pupil (and son-in-law) Diego Velázquez. Foucault quoted it in his famous “Las Meninas” essay, which was to become the first chapter of Les mots et les choses (in 1966).
Bilbao Song was produced by sala rekalde and filmed at the Serantes Theatre in Santurtzi, near Bilbao, together with professional and non-professional actors, and special guests such as Julen Madariaga (lawyer, politician, historical co-founder of ETA and later member of the social movement Elkarri) and the popular clown duo Pirritx and Porrotx. Using the empty stage as a site of production, Bilbao Song shows different tableaux vivants as fantasmagoric imagery and a complex form of allegory. Friedl takes the painting Henry IV Receiving the Ambassador of Spain (1817) by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as his point of departure. Other images refer to the Basque Painting movement of the interwar period (1915–1939), such as El Paria Castellano by Juan de Echevarria (1917), El Orden by Gustavo de Maeztu (1918–19), Tríptico de la Guerra by Aurelio Arteta (1937), and the painting Soldado y Mulata by Bilbao-born painter and illustrator Víctor Patricio Landaluze, who in 1850 emigrated to Cuba and became a chronicler of Cuban society.
Friedl’s film emphasizes the actual process of image production, which is completed by the only action that takes place on stage: a live interpretation of Bilbao-Song—from the unsuccessful musical comedy Happy End by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht—performed by a pianist and an accordion player.