Hans-Peter Feldmann

Hans-Peter Feldmann (17 January 1941 – 24 May 2023) was a German visual artist. Feldmann's approach to art-making was one of collecting, ordering, and re-presenting.

Biography Feldmann was born on 17 January 1941. In the 1960s, Feldmann studied painting at the University of Arts and Industrial Design Linz in Austria. He began working in 1968, producing the first of the small handmade books that would become a signature part of his work. These modest books, simply entitled Bild (Picture) or Bilder (Pictures), would include one or more reproductions from a certain type - knees of women, shoes, chairs, film stars, and so on - their subjects isolated in their ubiquity and presented without captions. In 1979, Feldmann decided to pull out of the art world in order to just make books and pictures for himself. In 1989, the curator Kasper König persuaded Feldmann to exhibit his work in a gallery again.

Feldmann died on 24 May 2023, at the age of 82.

Work Feldmann was a figure in the conceptual art movement and practitioner in the artist book and multiple formats. Feldmann's approach to art-making was one of collecting, ordering, and re-presenting amateur snapshots, print photographic reproductions, toys, and trivial works of art. Feldmann reproduced and recontextualized our reading of them in books, postcards, posters or multiples.

Feldmann's photographic essays might have a more intimate singularity in book form. His book Secret Picturebook (1973) is a thick, densely printed, scholarly tome with little pictures of women's torsos in sexy underwear inserted at intervals. It most pointedly embodies the artist's mischievous relationship to high culture.

Feldmann is known for creating installations using everyday images. In 2004–2005, MoMA P.S.1 presented 100 Years, an exhibition consisting of 101 photographic portraits of people aged 8 months to 100 years. In 2008, at the International Center of Photography, he exhibited framed front pages of 100 newspapers printed on 12 September 2001 from cities including New York, Paris, Dubai, Sydney, and Seoul.

Recognition Feldmann was named winner of the eighth biennial Hugo Boss Prize in 2010. This prize included an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in May 2011.

Collections Feldmann's work features in prominent private and public collections, such as that of the Fotomuseum Winterthur and the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona. In 2012, the artist donated one of his key works, Die Toten (The Dead), to the Berlin State Museums in Berlin.

Art market Feldmann was represented by Mehdi Chouakri Gallery in Berlin, Simon Lee Gallery in London, Galerie Francesca Pia in Zürich, Galerie Martine Aboucaya in Paris, and the 303 Gallery in New York. He did not limit the number of editions of his works, nor did he sign them.

Publications (selected) Eine Stadt. Essen. Ausst.-Kat. Museum Folkwang, Essen 1977 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Telefonbuch. AQ-Verlag, Dudweiler 1980. Hans-Peter Feldmann: Das Museum im Kopf. Ausst.-Kat. Frankfurt, Düsseldorf. Walther König, Köln 1989. Hans-Peter Feldmann: Eine Firma, Siemens. München 1991 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Arbeiten. Kunstverein Heinsberg 1991 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Kunstgeschichten. Paris 1992 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Portrait. Schirmer/Mosel München 1994 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Ferien, Secession. Wien 1994 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Voyeur 1.Aufl. La Fleche 1994 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Voyeur 2.Aufl. König, Köln 1997 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Ein Energieunternehmen, EVN. Maria Enzersdorf 1997 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Die Toten. Düsseldorf 1998 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Bücher. Ausst.-Kat. Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen 1999 (Serie Sammlung der Künstlerbücher Bd. 23). Hans-Peter Feldmann: Alle Kleider einer Frau. Düsseldorf - Toronto 1999 Hans-Peter Feldmann, C. Konrad: Die Johanneskirche in Düsseldorf. 1999 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Graz. Camera Austria 2000 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Profil ohne Worte. 2 Magazine 2000 Hans-Peter Feldmann: 100 Jahre. Anlässlich der Ausstellung im Museum Folkwang Essen. Schirmer/Mosel, München 2001. Celine Duval, Hans-Peter Feldmann: cahier d’images. 7 Magazine 2001 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Bilder / Pictures. 2002 Helena Tatay: Hans-Peter Feldmann 272 pages, Ausst.-Kat. Centre nationale de la photographie Paris u.a. (Englisch-Deutsch) Hans-Peter Feldmann: Vistas desde habitaciones de hotel. Barcelona 2003 Hans-Peter Feldmann: 1941. Düsseldorf 2003 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Babel ‘About Beauty’. Berlin 2004 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Das kleine Mövenbuch. Walther König, Köln 2004 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Abstrakte Kunst. Salon Verlag 2004 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Frauen im Gefängnis. Walther König, Köln 2005 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Paris. Salon Verlag 2005 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Liebe/Love. Walther König, Köln 2006 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Die beunruhigenden Musen. Hans-Peter Feldmann in der Antikensammlung der Kunsthalle zu Kiel. Ausst.-Kat. Kunsthalle Kiel, Schleswig-Holsteinischer Kunstverein, Kiel. Walther König, Köln 2006. Hans-Peter Feldmann: Birgit. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver 2006 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Blau. Walther König, Köln 2006 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Zeitungsphotos. Walther König, Köln 2006 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Foto. Galerie Langhans, Praha 2006 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Voyeur 3.Aufl.. König, Köln 2006 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Buch / Book # 9. Sprengel Museum Hannover 2007 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Smoke. Walther König, Köln 2007 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Album. Walther König, Köln 2008 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Voyeur 4.Auflage. Walther König, Köln 2009 Hans-Peter Feldmann: Interview zusammen mit Hans Ulrich Obrist. Walther König, Köln 2009 Hans-Peter Feldmann: "FRAUEN". MÖREL Books, London 2020