ArCHITECTurE, DISPATCHES ArT, MuSIC, ArCHITECTurE, FIlM, SHOPPING, NEwS AND THINGS TO MAKE AND DO… ArT, MuSIC, ArCHITECTurE, FIlM, SHOPPING, NEwS AND THINGS TO MAKE AND DO…
TIME BANDIT: PETEr FrIEDl
You’d think that an artist who was
born in 1960 and then puts on a
‘retrospective’ that goes from 2006 back
to 1964 might be an artist who thought a
little too highly of himself. Boy genius
or what? But for Austrian artist Peter
Friedl, the idea of a ‘retrospective’
,
n
o
forms part of the institutional politics
j
i
D
that go to support what we think of as
,
an artist’s ‘career’: what should or
m
u
i
shouldn’t be left out? And who decides?
t
r
o
s
n
o
If Friedl’s projects have been described
C
e
as ‘conceptual, aesthetic acts’, it’s
l
r
because he makes works that combine and
o
f
clash opposing frameworks of how the
n s
i l
r e
content of artworks are affected by
o s
M s
u
external issues. In his celebrated video
é r
r B
d
King Kong (2001), Friedl filmed n d
A n
the cult American singer-songwriter
a
:
o s
Daniel Johnston singing his King
t i
o r
h a
Kong (1983) in a park in Sophiatown,
P P
. ,
Johannesburg; Sophiatown had been a sort
t h
n c
i e
of cultural ‘little Harlem’ before the
a r
p
e
apartheid regime demolished it in the
c n
i i
l m
1960s. It was also the setting for a jazz
y l
r A
c
opera about a black boxer nicknamed…King
a e
i
, r
Kong. It’s no longer a song about e e
t l
i a
a silver-screen monster, but a string . s G
l o
of associations about the defeated
l p y
i m s
t o e
hero/outcast and the racist act of
s c t
o s r
e l c u
distinguishing people as less-than-human.
d e i o
i s l C
v s y
u r .
, r c t
p B a s
This month, at Kunsthalle Basel, Friedl
o i
o , , t
l y 7 r
will present a new installation based
e 0 a
, c 0
c é 2 e
on interviews conducted with some of
e H h
s , t
a I
the 108 employees working at Edifício 1 n
I ©
1 r I
E V .
Copan, the residential building in São n X e
i e
Paulo designed by Oscar Niemeyer and
THE PErFECT WOMAN?:
c
m i o n
r k a
1 e
completed in 1966. But like Friedl’s
DON BrOWN
o r
l Y F
, a
o G
careful manipulations of historical fact
e
d d
i n
and improbable associations, this will no
v a
Though he cites classical
the viewer feel slightly
, t
doubt be playfully allusive rather than
7 s
sculpture as his prevailing
0 i uneasy, especially as these
0 t
polemical. J.J. Charlesworth
2 r
influence, Don Brown’s shiny
a diminutive replicas – no
,
y e
resin works have more in
t h bigger than children – are
i t
PETEr FrIEDl C
common with roman Catholic
y
often half-dressed. what
18 JANuArY – 30 MArCH
y s
t e
devotional figurines than
r t
clothing they do wear is
KuNSTHAllE BASEl
e r Greek nudes. Nearly ten
b u
www.KuNSTHAllEBASEl.CH
i o
unmistakably contemporary:
L C years ago, Brown first took
platform shoes, vests, pop
his wife, Yoko, as a muse,
socks. It’s as if the viewer
creating half- and three-
has caught them in a variety
quarter-scale replicas of
of slowed-down but essentially
her. The result is a highly
mundane situations like
finished, unsettling series
getting dressed or watching
of statues. His most recent
TV. But it’s the painstaking
works, on show at Galerie
work that has gone into these
Almine rech in Paris this
petite pieces (too small to
month, include shrouded,
have been cast from life)
pilgrim-type figures as well
that calls to mind devotional
as those depicted in more up-
statuary. There’s something a
to-the-minute fashions.
bit Winter’s Tale-ish, too,
about Brown’s Yokos: they seem
Brown’s myriad Yokos look
either trapped or ready to
eerily lifelike: the white
come – slowly and gracefully
resin surfaces suggest a
– to life. Laura Allsop
thin translucent skin, while
their often awkward poses
DON BrOwN
and downcast eyes intimate
12 JANuArY – 9 FEBruArY
embarrassment at being
GAlErIE AlMINE rECH, PArIS
watched. All of which makes www.GAlErIEAlMINErECH.COM
ArTrEvIEw 24
Dispatches_Jan.indd 24 4/12/07 10:54:57
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