Artist: Peter Friedl
Exhibition title: Teatro
Curated by: Anne Faucheret, Vanessa Joan Müller
Venue: Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
Date: March 22 – June 9, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Kunsthalle Wien
Note: Exhibition booklet can be found here. A Report to an Academy can be found here
Peter Friedl’s multifaceted works manifest a heterogeneous approach to media and styles. His projects are exemplary suggestions or solutions to aesthetic problems regarding our political and historical consciousness. Looking for new narrative models, they explore both the construction and limitations of representation by applying conceptual strategies such as contextual transfers and reinterpretations of genres from the history of modernity.
The exhibition Teatro at Kunsthalle Wien focuses on a series of recurring themes in Friedl’s œuvre: model, language, history, translation, theatricality.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is the film installation Report (2016), which was first presented at documenta 14 (2017). Based on Kafka’s short story “A Report to an Academy”, Friedl develops both a complex and cinematographically opulent reflection on the interplay between identity and language, as well as assimilation and autonomy, by addressing the self-representational musings of the protagonist ape named Red Peter and his integration into human society. The cast comprises more than twenty actors who recite excerpts from Kafka’s text, either in their respective first languages or in languages of their choosing (Arabic, Dari, English, French, Greek, Kurdish, Russian, and Kiswahili). Only the original language, Kafka’s Prague German, is missing. The empty stage of the National Theater of Greece in Athens is the setting.
Works such as The Dramatist (Black Hamlet, Crazy Henry, Giulia, Toussaint) (2013) and Teatro Popular (2016–17) recall the topos of theatricality, but concentrate on the concept of model. Drawing on traditional forms of puppet theater, both The Dramatist and Teatro Popular may be read as model arrangements for potential counter-narratives to modernity.
This links them to Rehousing, a project Friedl started in 2012, which features a series of true -to-scale architectural models of historical structures, in some cases destroyed or never realised. The chosen houses represent living environments as diverse reflections on history, politics, biographies and ideologies; as “case studies for a kind of mental geography relating to an alternative strain of modernity”. (Friedl)
On occasion of the exhibition in Vienna, two new models were created: Winnie and Nelson Mandela’s former home in Soweto, (8115 Vilakazi Street), which has been transformed into a museum, and one of the container-like prefabricated houses that made up Amona – the Israeli outpost in Palestinian territories on the West Bank that was cleared in 2017.
The exhibition also features older works such as Dummy (1997), a video work first shown at documenta X, or the long-term project Theory of Justice (1992–2010). Both focus on the problematization of fictions of justice employing very different formal strategies. In correspondence with more recent works, they not only provide insights into both thematic and formal continuities and changes in Friedl’s œuvre, but also gain new, often daunting relevance in view of current struggles for distribution and recognition.
The exhibition will be on view at the Carré d’Art, Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes from 25/10 2019 – 1/03 2020.
Peter Friedl (b. 1960 in Austria) is an artist based in Berlin. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and Hamburger Kunsthalle. He has participated in documenta X, 12, and 14 (1997, 2007, 2017); the 48th and 56th Venice Biennale (1999, 2015); the 3rd Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2004); Manifesta 7, Trento (2008); the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008); the 28th Bienal de São Paulo (2008); La Triennale, Paris (2012); the Taipei Biennial (2012, 2016); the 10th Shanghai Biennale (2014); the 5th Thessaloniki Biennale (2015); and the 1st Anren Biennale (2017). He takes part in the Sharjah Biennial 14 (March – June 2019). Selected solo exhibitions include OUT OF THE SHADOWS, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2004); Work 1964–2006, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Miami Art Central; Musée d’Art Contemporain; Marseille (2006–07); Blow Job, Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp (2008); Working, Kunsthalle Basel (2008); Peter Friedl, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2010); The Dramatist, Artspace, Auckland, (2014); The Diaries, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (2016), and Teatro Popular, Lumiar Cité, Lisbon (2017).
Installation view: Peter Friedl. Teatro, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Peter Friedl, Rehousing, 2012–2019, Courtesy the artist and Guido Costa Projects, Turin; Teatro Popular, 2016–17, Courtesy the artist and Lumiar Cité, Lisbon
Installation view: Peter Friedl. Teatro, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Peter Friedl, Theory of Justice, 1992–2010, Collection Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Teatro Popular, 2016–17, Courtesy the artist and Lumiar Cité, Lisbon
Installation view: Peter Friedl. Teatro, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Peter Friedl, The Dramatist (Black Hamlet, Crazy Henry, Giulia, Toussaint), 2013, Collection Carré d’Art – Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, Courtesy the artist and Guido Costa Projects, Turin
Installation view: Peter Friedl. Teatro, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Peter Friedl, Teatro (Report), 2016–18, Courtesy the artist and Guido Costa Projects, Turin
Installation view: Peter Friedl. Teatro, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Peter Friedl, Rehousing, 2012–2019, Courtesy der Künstler und Guido Costa Projects, Turin
Installation view: Peter Friedl. Teatro, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Peter Friedl, Teatro Popular, 2016–17, Courtesy the artist and Lumiar Cité, Lisbon
Installation view: Peter Friedl. Teatro, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Peter Friedl, 1998, Collection La Gaia – Busca
Installation view: Peter Friedl. Teatro, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Peter Friedl, Theory of Justice, 1992–2010, Collection Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Teatro (Report), 2016–18, Courtesy the artist and Guido Costa Projects, Turin
Peter Friedl, Report, 2016 (Videostill), single-channel HD video installation, colour, sound, 33:03 min., loop, Courtesy the artist; Galerie Erna Hécey, Luxembourg; Guido Costa Projects, Turin; and Nicolas Krupp, Basel
Peter Friedl, Theory of Justice, 1992–2010 (Detail), newspaper clippings, display cases (steel, plexiglas, chipboard), 100 x 160 x 75 cm each, Collection Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Installation view Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), 2006, Photo: Tony Coll
Peter Friedl, King Kong, 2001 (Videostill), video installation, colour, sound, 3:57 min., loop, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Erna Hécey, Luxembourg
Peter Friedl, Liberty City, 2007 (Videostill), video, colour, sound, 1:11 min., Courtesy the artist; Galerie Erna Hécey, Luxembourg; Guido Costa Projects, Turin; and Nicolas Krupp, Basel
Peter Friedl, 1998, mixed media, dimensionen variable, Installation view Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2000, Collection La Gaia – Busca, Photo: Jean-Claude Planchet
Peter Friedl, Study for Social Dreaming, 2014–2017 (Videostill), HD-video, colour, sound, 28:50 min., loop, Courtesy the artist; Galerie Erna Hécey, Luxembourg; Guido Costa Projects, Turin; and Nicolas Krupp, Basel
Peter Friedl, Teatro Popular, 2016–2017 (Detail), wood, aluminium, fabric, 22 hand puppets, mixed media, dimension variable, Courtesy the artist and Lumiar Cité, Lisbon, Photo: Daniel Malhão