BIOGRAPHY
Peter Friedl was born in Oberneukirchen, Austria, 1960. Lives
in situ 2008 Working, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland
2007 Documenta 12
2006 Work 1964–2006, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Miami Art Central, Miami Art Museum; and Musée d’art contemporain, Marseille, France
2002 luttesdesclasses, Institut d’art Contemporain, Villeurbanne, France
1999 48. Biennale di Venezia
1997 Documenta X
Selected Bibliography BAL, Mieke, “De-centering: The Fragility of Mastery” IN:
Peter Friedl: Work 1964–2006 (cat.), Barcelona, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona – MACBA, 2006, pp. 79–108; CHEVRIER, Jean-François, “A Global Playground” IN:
Peter Friedl: Playgrounds, Göttingen, Steidl Publishers, 2008, pp. 5–15; FRIEDL, Peter,
Trabalhando no Copan/ Working at Copan, Berlin/ New York, Sternberg Press, 2007.
INTERVIEW
Jean-Pierre Rehm: Many of your works deal with childhood: Peterchen [Little Peter] (1992–95), Playgrounds (1995– ), King Kong (2001), the book featuring children’s monologues, Four or Five Roses, and many others. Childhood is, as we know, on the one hand related to a romantic topos of innocence and origin, and on the other, linked today with a market that targets a new field of consumers, the end of childhood as a terra incognita. Why is there such an insistence? And how could this be part of “critical” art if one thinks of recent artworks focusing on children, which are imprisoned by, let’s say, “post-pop”?
Peter Friedl: I would say instead that some of my works are dealing with the representation of childhood rather than with “childhood” itself. They make use of it and the questions involved. This might be a strategic choice since I have decided to make use of positive misunderstandings. It’s always funny to start with something such as a linguistic problem. I mean, what happens if you take relatively complex questions and, before they get too complex, deal with them on another, more inadequate, level? For example, a child level as opposed to an adult level; the subaltern opposed to whatever, with all the crazy desires behind it. There are also many other levels to work with, such as the politically self-opinionated level, or the level of documentary rigor. These are, in my understanding, genre-specific solutions. Aesthetic problems can only be resolved when you’re able to put them in parentheses; when you “exhibit” them (which is never normal); when you somehow make it a strategic program. They are certainly not there to satisfy a persistent hunger for the unambiguous, for example, in this case, adequate expectations of “childhood,” be they romantic or anti-romantic. On the other hand, there is no need to be worried about running out of content.
Jean-Pierre Rehm: Can you be more specific about what you mean when you say, “aesthetic problems can only be resolved when you’re able to put them in parentheses; when you ‘exhibit’ them (which is never normal); or when you somehow make it a strategic program”? Do you see three different ways of solving problems here? Is exhibiting a way of inserting the parentheses?
Peter Friedl: It’s like the Holy Trinity… I really don’t know how many ways there are to solve problems, or what sorts of problems, but yes, exhibiting is, in my understanding, a medium, and consequently it also has a history. “History” – or better: more history – isn’t necessarily a better option than “no history,” it just shows how things are considered to be related to each other, and what influences these relations could have. As we know, exhibiting means, among other things, that the “display” turns out to be more prominent. And display means: the various (visible and not) pedestals, frames, walls, projections, arenas, etc. I like to think of some of my works as instruments to be used. This doesn’t mean that form is relative or something to neglect.
Jean-Pierre Rehm: Could you give some examples beginning with Playgrounds and Four or Five Roses?
Peter Friedl: Playgrounds is an ongoing project: simply color slides from public playgrounds all over the world, which I’ve taken myself. The commentary, discourse, and all the other background information are invisible and have become part of the series. You can say the pictures – all in landscape format (horizontal) – quote the genre of conceptual photography. They are supposed to be quite indifferent to interpretation and even to how they are being presented other than being projected digitally in a more or less kid-size format. Somebody once wrote that all these photos show empty playgrounds. That’s obviously not true. Here you see what people understand by contents and what they want as contents. Some pictures show empty playgrounds because it just so happened that there were no people there, kids were at school.
* Edited excerpt of newly revised and expanded interview originally published as “Malentendus en chantier”,
Multitudes, no. 17, Summer 2004, pp. 183-192.
Jean-Pierre Rehm is an art and cinema critic, he teaches in the École nationale des beaux-arts de Lyon and is the director of fidMarseille (International Documentary Film Festival).
Projects with updated content
