Forms of formless knowledge
Glossary: WRITING/READING. Peter Friedl *
by
Peter Friedl is one of four artists invited by Bulegoa z/b to create a text to be read as part of the staging of “Una, dos, tres, cuatro paredes” (“One, two, three, four walls”) within which the Jorge Oteiza work Homenaje a Velázquez is to be presented. This project has been specifically produced for the exhibition “Estancias. Prácticas restituyentes sobre la Colección ARTIUM” (“Stanzas. Restorative practices on the Artium collection”) curated by Mar Villaespesa and BNV producciones in collaboration with Bulegoa z/b, Fundación Rodríguez, Valentín Roma and Laura Trafí-Prats for the Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Peter Friedl presents his contribution to “Una, dos, tres, cuatro paredes” in a session focusing on the term “Writing/Reading”. During the session he will be reading an essay written for the occasion and will go into some of the ideas (and images) behind it. As a complement to the presentation, the artist will also introduce the project “OUT OF THE SHADOWS”, a fragmentary dictionary articulated as a critical tool on the history of Cyprus.
The presentation proposes an open approach to the Glossary, an initiative begun in February 2011 with a series of definitions we requested from Isidoro Valcárcel Medina. The Glossary came out of the need to create discussion around the meanings the different disciplines that come together in our programme assign to a single term. The list of terms grows over time to include new definitions and new contributors.
*This presentation is linked to the Glossary, and also to “Una, dos, tres, cuatro paredes” (“One, two, three, four walls”), Bulegoa z/b’s contribution to “Estancias. Prácticas restituyentes sobre la Colección ARTIUM” (“STANZAS. Restitutive Practices on the Artium Collection”), curated by Mar Villaespesa and BNV Producciones.
Peter Friedl (b. 1960) is an artist based in Berlin. He has participated in 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, Trento (2008), the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008), the 28th Bienal de São Paulo (2008). Solo exhibitions include “luttesdesclasses,” Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne (2002), “OUT OF THE SHADOWS: what is written cannot be unwritten,” Witte de With, Rotterdam (2004), the retrospective survey “Work 1964–2006,” Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Miami Art Central, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille (2006–07), “Working,” Kunsthalle Basel (2008), “Blow Job,” Extra City – Kunsthal Antwerpen, “Peter Friedl,” Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2010), and “Magnificence,” Guido Costa Projects, Turin (2011). Since the 1980s he has published numerous essays and book projects such as “Four or Five Roses” (2004), “Working at Copan” (2007), and “Playgrounds” (2008). “Secret Modernity: Selected Writings and Interviews 1981–2009” (Sternberg Press) was published in 2010.