Through a series of exhibitions in Johannesburg, Umtata and Cape Town we hope to introduce Friedl's work to a wide audience around the country. Of particular interest to audiences in South Africa will be Friedl's latest film installation King Kong, which was shot in Sofiatown/Triomf in June 2001. Using the genre of the music video clip, the film engages with the vexed history of the 1959 musical King Kong by Todd Matshikiza, which revealed much about the past and continuing structural dynamics at play in the South African cultural context. The exhibitions will run concurrently in Johannesburg, Umtata and Cape Town between 1 May - 21 May this year. We are also very keen to present a series of talks by the artist at cultural institutions in Johannesburg, Umtata and Cape Town, which we hope will give the public a cultural context and entry point into Friedl's work.
Foreword
The idea of collaborating with Peter Friedl developed in three institutions. Prior to this project, the directors of the Casino Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain in Luxembourg, the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen and the Institute for Contemporary Art in Cape Town had not only come to Friedl's work from vastly different vantage points but had also each worked with him in different exhibition situations. In this respect, certain past works by Friedl have particular relevance within the framework of the current project. Hotel Mama, an exhibition curated by Peter Friedl in Vienna in 1995, reflected on the historical moment when curatorial power shifted from the "accumulation of information" to the "staging of evidence" (Roger M. Buergel). In 1997, KINO and Dummy bracketed the city of Kassel and the discursive strategies of documenta X in the formal language of French structuralist cinema. Untitled (brothers in crime), at Galerie Erna Hécey in Luxembourg in 1998, transformed artistic practice into something between graphic design and interior decoration. For the exhibition Do All Oceans Have Walls? in Bremen in 1998, Friedl's reflections on the genre of public art took the shape of custom-made shoes for the artist and the curators. In 1999, Friedl responded to an invitation to take part in the exhibition 1+3=4x1 in Leipzig by declining the invitation to participate. He also asked that the curator who had invited him withdraw from the project. Responding to an invitation to participate in Johnny, a utopic attempt in 2000 to integrate the independent institutions of the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Friedl provided 2001, a set of low, rectangular-admittedly uncomfortable-platforms which enabled spectators to reposition themselves in the face of marathon sessions of theatre, dance, film and music. In the recent group exhibition Audit, at the Casino Luxembourg, H.E.L.P situated questions of design firmly within the realm of institutional critique.
These concrete experiences, and a consideration of certain trends in the recep-tion of his work, informed the decision to develop an extended and continuous dialogue with Friedl within our respective institutions. In turn, this has provided Friedl with the platform from which to interrogate the genre of the retro- spective exhibition and its attendant conventions: the relationship between old and new projects; the need for variable strategies of presentation and display; the concept of the catalogue itself. These aspects, which usually function as fixed elements within the traditional structure of the retrospective exhibition, are redeployed as investigative tools in the current project. In the same way that Hamlet is a play about playing, and Eyes Wide Shut is a film about filming, Friedl's project is an exhibition about exhibiting. A further challenge presented by the fluid relationship between the three participating institutions was to conceive of the exhibition as having fixed and variable components which could function in three very different exhibition situations. The marked contrast between the white cubes of the Casino Luxembourg, housed in a 19th century Neo-Baroque building, the converted rooms of the GAK, in a former coffee-roasting plant overlooking the city of Bremen, and the temporary, negotiated spaces of the Institute for Contemporary Art, set up on this occasion to run concurrently in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Umtata, demanded the reworking of existing material in relation to given structural conditions, mobile works specific to each site.
How can artistic practice be redefined as a strategy to disarm power, in its widest sense? How does artistic practice relate to institutional practice in its manifestations; exhibition, mediation, publication and distribution? What does the concept 'genre' mean today? How much autonomy is possible or even necessary? These are fundamental questions which Friedl confronts. His work refuses stylistic or formal categorization. In the form of "conceptual, aesthetic acts" (Paul Sztulman) it offers diverse models, which can be used to help find answers to these questions. These acts are not limited exclusively to the field of institutional critique. They are offered as examples suitable for newly constructing our perspective and knowledge of social, political and cultural conditions.
We would like to thank all the people who have been involved in the realization of the exhibitions in Luxembourg, Bremen and South Africa, as well as those involved in the publication of this book. In particular, we would like to thank the artist-Peter Friedl-whose reflections on genres, exhibitions and the role of institutions informed much of our thinking and drove most of our discussions. The gallerists Emmo Grofsmid and Karmin Kartowikromo of MKgalerie.nl in Rotterdam, Erna Hécey in Luxembourg, Sara Meltzer in New York and Nicolas Krupp in Basel have exhibited Friedl's work for many years and offered their support in many ways. Ralph Schilcher of Galerie & Edition Artelier in Graz produced the new poster works for this project, which will be shown for the first time in this exhibition. Our especial thanks go to Andrée Cooke, who produced the video film King Kong, shown for the first time at the Chisenhale Gallery in London earlier this year, as well as Andreas Pawlik at D+ | Büro für Design in Vienna, who designed this book. The authors examine various aspects of Friedl's practice: Alison Gingeras looks at strategies and procedures in Friedl's work and relates these to tendencies within the history of Conceptual art; Eva Schmidt describes Friedl's fall-out with theatre in the early eighties; Roger M.Buergel interviewed the artist on the fundamentals of his work, and Thomas Mulcaire discusses design questions with the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project. Peter Friedl himself contributed two texts, The Curse of the Iguana. On Genre and Power which was first published by Revolver - Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, the co-publisher of this edition, and a new text King Kong in Triomf, which appears for the first time here. Once again our heartfelt thanks go to all involved for their commitment and generosity to the project.
Enrico Lunghi, Casino-Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain, Luxembourg
Thomas Mulcaire, Institute for Contemporary Art, Cape Town
Eva Schmidt, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen
November 2001
