Uncheck the box to avoid the aggregation and analysis of your behaviour data collected on this website. Done
Looking for something specific?
Just start typing anywhere to search anything.

Yours, KOW

Peter Friedl, 1998

For his first retrospective in 1998, Peter Friedl proposed only one work. He asked the entire staff of the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels—from the director to the electrician—what animal they had once in their life wanted to be. The statements and wishes went from cat, unicorn, penguin, giraffe to crocodile, blue bear, lion and “a transparent, round virus.” Then the costumes of all named animals were produced, some in adults’, some in children’s sizes, and arranged in one of the exhibition rooms. Visitors were free to decide whether they only wanted to look at the costumes or slip into the role of one of the animals on display. Friedl took the genre of the retrospective literally: the game with the exhibits was in fact a reference to childhood, the most retrospective place of all.

The opening of the exhibition was documented on video; a seventeen-minute film was made from the footage. In subsequent presentations, Peter Friedl underwent a decisive change: the offer of participation no longer exists. The props have become relics; documents of a bygone time.

Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill
Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill
Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill
Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill
Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill
Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill
Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill
Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill
Peter Friedl, Peter Friedl, 1998, Video, color, sound, 16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop​​​​​​, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, videostill

Garments, mixed media
Dimensions variable
Collection La Gaia – Busca, Italy

Video, color, sound
16:57 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop
Edition of 3 + 1 AP

  • INDEX:

Peter Friedl

Peter Friedl is a classic of contemporary art. The three-time documenta participant, born in 1960, can be considered a notorious participant in discourse - because his work has always understood how to address major themes in such a way that they found and find new forms away from the canon and mainstream. Forms that run counter to power and domination, subvert them, escape them.... and confront them in the process. Friedl takes away from history - for example colonialism or modernity, its paradigms and institutions - the power to define what is connected and how, and with an almost innocent-seeming aesthetic he tells a different story about humans and historical actions than we are used to and may find opportune. Peter Friedl provokes that which dominates us, including our own thinking. Throughout the years he his work has been displayed in meaningful solo exhibitions, most recently Teatro Popular (KOW Berlin, 2023), Report 1964-2022 (KW Berlin 2022) and No Prey, No Pay (Guido Costa Projects Turin, 2021) and major group exhibitions such as Life, Without Buildings, Gta exhibitions (ETH Zurich 2022), Das Auto rosi aber (KOW Berlin 2022) and Komunikazion - Inkomunikazio (Tabakalera, Centre for Contemporary Art, San Sebastian 2021).



Full Biography

Close