PETER FRIEDL
4 March – 6 June 2010
Curated by Leire Vergara
sala rekalde
Alameda de Recalde, 30
Bilbao 48009
Spain
Bilbao Song was filmed at the Serantes Theatre in Santurtzi, near Bilbao, together with professional and non-professional actors, and special guests such as Julen Madariaga (lawyer, politician, historical co-founder of ETA and later member of the social movement Elkarri) and the popular clown duo Pirritx and Porrotx. Using the empty stage as a site of production, Bilbao Song shows different tableaux vivants as fantasmagoric imagery and a complex form of allegory. Friedl takes the painting Henry IV Receiving the Ambassador of Spain (1817) by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as his point of departure. Other images refer to the Basque Painting movement of the interwar period (1915–1939), such as El Paria Castellano by Juan de Echevarria (1917), El Orden by Gustavo de Maeztu (1918–19), Tríptico de la Guerra by Aurelio Arteta (1937), and the painting Soldado y Mulata by Bilbao-born painter and illustrator Víctor Patricio Landaluze, who in 1850 emigrated to Cuba and became a chronicler of Cuban society.
Friedl’s film emphasizes the actual process of image production, which is completed by the only action that takes place on stage: a live interpretation of Bilbao-Song—from the unsuccessful musical comedy Happy End by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht—performed by a pianist and an accordion player.
The exhibition includes other films such as Liberty City (2007), The Children (2009) and Tiger oder Löwe (2000), as well as two ongoing archival projects, Theory of Justice and Playgrounds, both started in the 1990s. Following a rather structural organization, the exhibition offers the opportunity to go deeply into Friedl’s aesthetic agenda.
The artistic practice of Peter Friedl is rooted in a strong engagement with the study of specific conditions and genres of representation. His works present new models of narration: as exemplary articulations and solutions of aesthetic problems involving political and historical consciousness.
Peter Friedl (b. 1960), lives in Berlin and works in situ. He has participated in documenta X (1997) and documenta 12 (2007), the 48th Venice Biennale (1999); the 3rd Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2004); the 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Seville (2006); Manifesta 7, Trento (2008); 7th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2008); 28th Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2008) and Tirana International Contemporary Art Biennial, Tirana (2009). Solo exhibitions include Blow Job at Extra City Kunsthal Antwerpen (2008); Working at Kunsthalle Basel (2008); the retrospective survey “Work 1964–2006,” Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Miami Art Central, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille (2006–07); Out of the Shadows at Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2004). Since the 1980s he has published numerous essays and book projects such as Four or Five Roses (2004) and Working at Copan (2007). His most recent publication is Secret Modernity: Selected Writings and Interviews 1981–2009, edited by Anselm Franke and published in 2010 in two separate editions (German/English) by Sternberg Press, Berlin/New York.
For further information please contact:
Eztizen Esesumaga
Tel:(+34) 94 406 8707
Fax:(+34) 94 406 8754
salarekalde@bizkaia.net