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Observer of the ordinary

German Conceptualist finds beauty in the nondescript
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By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
February 14th, 2007 issue

Photo by Hans-Peter Feldmann
Some of Feldmann's strongest pieces are manipulated "found" photos.
The first solo exhibition in the Czech Republic by the famed German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann was curated by Karel Císař, a Czech who is two generations younger than Feldmann, who was born in 1941. This reflects Feldmann’s influence on local contemporary photographers, including Chalupecký Award winners such as Markéta Othová who are known for filling their photo-based installations with mundane scenes, not to mention established artists on the international scene such as Wolfgang Tillmans.
Feldmann’s current show at Langhans Gallery, practically retrospective in scope, features selected works from the 1970s to the present and combines found photographs (and photocopies of found images) with original photos by the artist.
Feldmann established himself as a photo-based conceptual artist in the 1970s, and participated in the monumental “documenta” exhibitions that take place every five years in Kassel Germany  — notably, “documenta 5” in 1972 and “documenta 6” in 1977. His work was also included in the contemporary art project “Utopia Station” at the Venice Biennale in 2003.
The essence of Feldmann’s work is embodied in a series of five nondescript photographs of car radios, sometimes showing a driver’s leg or a foot on the gas pedal. Titled “Car radios while good music is playing,” the series is meant to capture a fleeting moment. It also raises the question of what music was playing, and, for that matter, what this German conceptual artist might consider to be good music. Would it be ABBA or Euro disco like Boney M? Or the Rolling Stones or German prog-rockers Can?
Hans-Peter Feldmann

at Langhans Galerie Praha
Ends Feb. 25. Vodičkova 37, Prague 1–New Town. Open Tues.–Fri. noon–6 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m.–4 p.m.

One might assume that Feldmann would favor the kitschier music, since the first room of his exhibition contains enlarged photocopies of kitschy posters from the 1970s. There is a big-eyed girl hugging a big-eyed dog, lots of cats, and lovers on tropical beaches at sunset, among others. These early works by Feldmann are the progenitor of the horrendous manufactured kitsch of Jeff Koons.
Found photos created by amateurs also represent a large of part of Feldmann’s oeuvre. Some are kitsch, but a few are true finds, startling in their originality. These include a series of six photos showing a black man and a white woman individually standing in the same outdoor setting, then standing naked in a sparsely furnished room, then lying naked on a bed spread-eagle.
In another, more innocent, found photo titled Two Girls, Feldmann alters the original to greatly enhanced effect: It is a black-and-white photo of a girl with one foot on a scooter, touching the face of another girl standing beside her. The girls’ shadows dominate more than half of the photo, and the artist has cut the image of the second girl out of the photo so that she is only a white glow, like a vacant ghost image.
Feldmann’s original photography is best represented by his series made over time, such as “Window Washer,” in which more than 10 photographs show a woman cleaning her window and window sill. It seems Feldmann knew when this woman would be washing her windows, as he photographs her both inside and out (from across the street). Only a patient voyeur could make, or even think of taking, such a series of photographs.
Another curious series, titled “A Pound of Strawberries,” features about two dozen strawberries shot individually against a white background. Each strawberry takes on a life and character of its own, immortalized by Feldmann’s act of photographing them.
And that seems to be the point of Feldmann’s photographs, as well as the works of the artists influenced by him. Sometimes life is poetic. But, most of the time, nothing special or exciting is happening at all. Feldmann’s work invokes an anti-aesthetic, or perhaps rather an aesthetic of time, which highlights the beauty of the ordinary, the nondescript. His photos, both found and originals, capture life in all its banality. And either you get it or you don’t.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (14/02/2007):

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