The Langhans Gallery Prague

The first solo exhibition by Hans-Peter Feldmann (born in Düsseldorf, 1941) in the Czech Republic, presented his photographic works from the late 1960s to 2006. The curator was Karel Císař. A book was

The history of the discovered archive of the Ateliér Langhans, which comprises photographs originally made commercially but now perceived as works of art, can be seen as a form of gesture that artists have been concerned with since the late 1960s. A special place amongst them is held by Hans-Peter Feldmann, a rare example of an artist who achieved an important position both in Germany and internationally back in the 1970s. Although he participated in the legendary exhibitions of “documenta 5“ and “documenta 6“ in Kassel, in 1972 and 1977, he is still invited to take part in projects where his work is categorized as “contemporary art,” for example “Utopia Station“ at the Venice Biennial, 2003. Similarly, Feldmann‘s first solo exhibition in the Czech Republic was based on a dialogue with a curator two generations his junior.

The exhibition aimed to present in all its complexity Feldmann’s work, which is focused on found picture material. The exhibition included examples of his book projects, in which he has assembled photographic materials (such as postcards, posters, newspaper cuttings, and photo series) from archives, and investigates the nature of reality or the relationship between text and image and the crossing over of print mass media and the world of serious art. All these works, however, are linked by the artist’s conception of photography as a projection of desire. Its archive thus represents a distinctive encyclopaedia of the human mind, and not only in the Germany of the second half of the twentieth century.

The aim of this exhibition project by Hans-Peter Feldmann was not merely to present works (still almost unknown in the Czech Republic) by one of the most important German artist of the second half of the twentieth century, works which raise questions about the nature of art, its relationship to pop culture and politics. The aim was also, indeed mainly, to emphasize the important role that 1970s conceptual photography has played in the development of art today. The exhibition therefore was not intended merely to fill in a blank in our understanding of the development of modern art; rather, it aimed also to show the foundations of the works of artists of the young generation.

Karel Císař, Curator of the Exhibition

A book, also called FOTO, was published to accompany the exhibition.
The Gallery also offered guided tours and lectures related to the exhibition, every Wednesday from 17 January to 21 February 2007, at 5 pm. They were included in the admission price (60 Kč/30 Kč).

Karel Císař was born in Prague, in 1972. He works in the Institute of Philosophy, the Academy of Sciences, Prague. He has worked as a guest curator of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin, 2003) and was curator of the Fifth Zvon Biennial of Young Artists, City Gallery Prague (2005). He is the editor of the volume Co je to fotografie? (What is Photography, Prague, 2004) and an adviser on the publication Vitamin Ph (London and New York: Phaidon, 2006).

We thank the Czech-German Fund for the Future, the Ministry of Culture, and Prague City Hall for their generous support. Media partners: Respekt, Rádio 1.