Event detail
Peter Friedl, Tiger oder Löwe, 2000
In his first exhibition at Spring Projects, Berlin-based artist Peter Friedl (b. 1960) presents work that explores the
photographic gaze—the relationship between document and artifact—in different ways.
Pictures from newspapers and magazines, which Friedl has been collecting and exhibiting since 1992 for his
archive project Theory of Justice, are the subject of his most recent black and white photographs (2006–2008). The series addresses questions of originality and historicity—and how these give rise to new pictures. As the art of observation, every theory draws a picture of the world. But what happens if the images themselves want to become
theory? What is, or what achieves pictorial justice? The title refers to the attempt at renewing social contract theory undertaken by the US philosopher John Rawls (1921–2002). A Theory of Justice (1971) and the subsequent
restatement Justice as Fairness are classic examples of a political liberalism that believes in a well-ordered society
and the overarching consensus of its members. In the current global drama of exclusion and marginalization, such
justice and distribution theories seem to be out of touch with reality. In grasping instead the logic of the political
as opposition to the dispositifs of administration, police repression, and institutional regulation, conflict— politics
as resistance—takes the place of consensus. The small shadows at the periphery of these multiply-published and
differently contexualized consumer images, re-photographed with black-and-white negative film, transform history
into temporary autonomy.
In his video Liberty City (2007), Friedl addresses another standard historical scene. On the night of 17
December 1979, the (black) motorcyclist Arthur McDuffie was stopped by (white) cops on the corner of North Miami
Avenue and 38th Street and beaten to death. When the accused policemen were acquitted five months later, riots
broke out in Liberty City. It was the darkest moment in the history of Miami. Friedl inverts the dramatic structure:
In his nocturnal scene staged and filmed on site, the (white) cop is beaten up. The looped and uncut sequence
appears filmed by an eyewitness. In fact, it is a meticulously constructed, dramatic study. The film was shot in the
streets of the Liberty Square Housing Project, a residential complex built during the Roosevelt era in the 1930s for
African American residents. To keep the black and white communities separated, a wall was erected on the eastern
boundary of Liberty Square, the remains of which can still be seen today. Friedl’s short loop is an homage to the
community of Liberty City—epic theatre in the genre of documentary aesthetics.
Two older video works will complete the exhibition. In Untouched (1995–1997), Friedl’s son pops balloons
printed with the logo “Nobody Knows Science.” The video material was recorded over a longer period of time and in
various locations. In Tiger oder Löwe [Tiger or Lion] a live tiger fights with a stuffed snake. This scene, based on the
picture Tiger and Snake (c. 1858) by Eugène Delacroix was filmed in a room of the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 2000.
The original can be found in the museum’s permanent collection.
Peter Friedl’s art practice highlights political awareness, permanent displacement, narratology, potential counter
imagery, and the reinvention of genres left over from the history of modernism. His work has been exhibited worldwide, including at documenta X (1997) and documenta 12 (2007), the 48th Venice Biennale (1999), the 3rd Berlin Biennale (2004), the 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Seville (2006), Manifesta 7 in Trentino-South Tyrol (2008), and the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008).
This is his first solo exhibition in the UK since 2001.
http://www.springprojects.co.uk
