Untouched, 1995–97

Video

Untouched is a cinematically unpretentious family video consisting of different short sequences, which follow each other without connection. In each shot one recognizes Friedl’s son Isaak, who plays out all of the conceivable ways of popping a balloon with the imprint: NOBODY KNOWS SCIENCE. The footage was recorded over a two-year time period in Italy and in Berlin. Friedl’s son demonstrates how productive the destructive lust which is generally thought of as a death wish can be. The white, pink-colored, blue and yellow balloons which are the object of his inventive attacks, are reminiscent from various exhibitions of Friedl.

Video, color, sound
3:39 min., aspect ratio 4:3, loop
Edition of 3 + 1 AP

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Peter Friedl

**The Dramatist (Black Hamlet, Crazy Henry, Giulia, Toussaint), 2013**

Biography

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

Exhibitions at KOW