Peter Friedl

Peter Friedl was born in Oberneukirchen, Austria, in 1960. Friedl is self-taught, a three-time Documenta participant and represented Austria at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999.
Important solo exhibitions of the artist took place, among others, in 1996 at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 1999 at Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum Graz, 2004 at Frankfurter Kunstverein and Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2006 at MACBA Barcelona (2006), 2008 at Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp and 2012 at Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg. Friedl participated in documenta X in 1999, Documenta 12 in 2007 and documenta in Athens in 2017. In 1999 his works were shown at the 48th Biennale di Venezia and in 2012 at the Taipei Biennale, Taiwan. In 2010, his writings "The Secret Modernity. Selected Texts and Interviews 1981-2009" by Sternberg Press. In 2022 KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Kunst-Werke) dedicated to him a major retrospective in Berlin, Germany, where Peter Friedl lives and works and, as he himself says, "in situ".

The artist works conceptually, in two- and three-dimensional media as well as with film and video. He takes a critical attitude towards the art system and questions political, aesthetic and cultural systems of power and quality criteria. Friedl is interested in artistic strategies of depopularization, in theater beyond its narrative meaning and in how history can be “thought differently”, whereby for him good art does not have to be political per se. In his multi-layered works, he questions the construction of representation, also with regard to popular mechanisms, and develops new narratives for our historical and political consciousness.

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