Travail 1964-2006. The show problematizes the genre of retrospective, that is, the musealization of an oeuvre within the framework of institutional logics and through the context of its own history. For this reason, works and installations are edited and exhibited nearly as documents. In addition, the exhibition brings together a vast selection of drawings on paper, presented chronologically from Friedl's earliest artistic production to the present.
Travail 1964–2006
“What interests me about a new concept of genre is how it can create a difference to
the old politics of identity. It offers the freedom to look at things more
differently, which becomes again interesting in a political and aesthetic prospect.
Things become a little strange if their relative autonomy is enforced.”
Peter Friedl
Le [mac], musee d’art contemporain de Marseille is pleased to present the
retrospective exhibition Peter Friedl: Travail: 1964-2006.
Berlin-based artist Peter Friedl (born in Austria, 1960) has made a steady incision
in the methods and conventions of contemporary art. He has held numerous solo
exhibitions and participated in major group shows such as Documenta X and this
year’s Documenta 12 ( http://www.thezoostory.de ). Presented today in the form of a
retrospective, Friedl’s work—consistently heterogeneous in terms of medium, style,
and meaning—highlights political awareness, autobiography, permanent displacement,
design interventions, narratology, potential counter imagery, and the reinvention of
genres left over from the history of modernism. His projects present aesthetic
models for disarming configurations of power.
Peter Friedl: Travail 1964–2006 problematizes the genre of “retrospective,” that is,
the musealization of an oeuvre within the framework of institutional logics and
through the context of its own history. For this reason, the works and installations
in this exhibition are edited and exhibited nearly as documents. In addition, the
exhibition brings together a vast selection of drawings on paper, presented
chronologically from Friedl’s earliest artistic production to the present. These
drawings offer a glimpse of formal elements (handwriting, motifs, colors) and
contents (historical references, signs, and symbols) that often reappear in other
works and projects: The poster-piece Map (1969-2005) is based on an early drawing
from 1969 assigning the names of Native American peoples to the U.S. territory. In
Neue Straenverkehrsordnung (New Traffic Code, 2000), Friedl uses neon to
recreate a motif from 1995 in large scale. The reference is a RAF document from
1971, which outl
ines the possibilities and models of revolutionary activity in Western European
cities.
In the form of conceptual aesthetic acts and based on exemplary brief actions, video
works such as Dummy (1997) or Tiger oder Lowe (2000) investigate how art
history and social history function. The video installation King Kong (2001)
features songwriter Daniel Johnston against the backdrop of apartheid history,
filmed in “Triomf Park”—located in Sophiatown on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Also
included is Friedl’s most recent production, Liberty City—an homage to the community
of Liberty City in Miami.
Started in 1995, Playgrounds consists of more than 700 color slides arranged for
various digital wall projections in kid-size format. The pictures—all in landscape
format and taken by the artist—show public playgrounds from around the world.
Another ongoing project, Theory of Justice, is presented as both an extensive
installation and an artist’s book. Friedl’s project, begun in 1992, is based on the
collection and selection of newspaper and magazine images, which are displayed in
specially designed showcases.
The exhibition is produced by the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA),
Spain.
Opening: Friday, 29 June, 7:00 pm
[mac] Marseille
69 avenue de Haifa - Marseille
Open : Everyday 11am – 6pm.