303 Gallery presents our fourth one-person exhibition of work by Hans-Peter Feldmann. The German conceptualist will exhibit early and new collections of photographs, watercolors, objects and text based installations.
Hans Peter Feldmann’s appropriations of mass-produced images and objects capture the human compulsion to archive in an attempt to make sense of our surroundings. His particular sensibility produces works as personal and playful as “Pictures of car radios taken when good music is playing”, 1970’s to 1990’s, and a new sculpture of two collided matchbook trucks complete with a soy sauce oil spill. More socially critical work reflects, in part, on Feldmann’s national identity. His book, “1967-1993 Die Toten” reproduces images from newspapers of all of the lives lost due to the violence and terrorism that permeated contemporary German history.
In “Pictures from my collection of Amateur-photographs”, 2004, Feldmann has re-photographed found black/white and color prints that give us a glimpse into other people’s private lives while maintaining the distance to contemplate our own lives. This processing of perceived ideas and emotions is described in Feldmann’s catalogue with an excerpt from Chuck Berry’s autobiography: “First, it happened; second, I conceived what happened; third, I reproduced what I conceived; and fourth you will conceive what I have produced.”
Hans Peter Feldmann (b. 1941) lives and works in Dusseldorf. In 2002-2003, a comprehensive solo exhibition of Feldmann’s work traveled from the the Fundacio Antoni Tapies in Barcelona to the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Germany, the Centre National de la Photographie, Paris, and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. A major catalogue “272 Pages” with an essay by Helena Tatay was published to accompany the show. Hans Peter Feldmann was also included in the “Utopia Station” exhibition at the 2003 Venice Biennale, and in “The Last Picture Show” at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN, which will travel to the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and MARCO in Spain. Currently, Feldmann’s monumental photograph series “100 Years” is on view at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center , Long Island City, New York through February 20, 2005.