LONDON.- Richard Saltoun Gallery announces an exhibition of works by Hans-Peter Feldmann (b. 1941), recognised as one of the pioneering conceptual artists' from the 70s. The exhibition, drawn exclusively from a single private collection, focuses on Feldmann's key artistic practice of the time: the hand-coloured Xeroxes. Feldmann's work from this period is rarely exhibited, in part due to his decision to retire as an artist in 1979, which led him to either give away or destroy his work. Feldmann spent the next ten years in silence, running a souvenir shop in Düsseldorf and a mail order shop for thimbles. He returned to his career as an artist in 1989 and his reputation has grown in strength, as the first generation of conceptual art has been re-examined. Feldmann recalls his first experience of art through reproduction and his need to colour the black and white images in order to make the copy more beautiful: "to make them prettier, improve them, just as some people use a crocheted cover to improve the appearance of a toilet roll."
The exhibition is being displayed in tandem with a presentation in the office Renate Bertlmann - Verwandlungen (Transformation): Self Portraits from 1969 showcasing a set of 53 photographs by the radical Viennese feminist artist.
Hans-Peter Feldmann was born in 1941 in Düsseldorf and grew up in the small town of Hilden. He studied painting in the 1960s at the University of Arts and Industrial Design Linz, Austria. He began working in 1968, producing the first of the small handmade books that would then become a signature part of his work. These simple books, entitled Bilde (Picture) or Bilder (Pictures), would include one or more reproductions from a certain type or category - knees of women, shoes, chairs, film stars, landscapes etc. - all presented without captions or accompanying text. After a ten year hiatus from his artistic career, Feldmann has since been recognized as a major figure of the first generation of conceptual artists. He was named winner of the 8th Biennal Hugo Boss Prize in 2010 and recent solo museum exhibitions include: Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2013); Bawag Contemporary Foundation, Vienna; Serpentine Gallery, London; Hanger Bicocca, Milan (all 2012); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2011); Konsthall Malmo; Museo Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; and Kunsthalle Dusseldorf (all 2010).
Renate Bertlmann (b. 1943 Vienna, Austria) is one of the pioneering feminist artists, whose art practice focuses on representations of sex, love and male-female relationships. Belonging to the same generation as VALIE EXPORT and Birgit Jürgenssen, she was included in the radical feminist exhibition MAGNA. Feminismus: Kunst und Kreativität (1975), which represented a major political statement at the time.
Bertlmann has recently been included in Rebelle: Art & Feminism, MMKA, Arnhem, Netherlands (2009), Donna: avanguardia femminista negli anni '70 dalla Sammlung Verbund di Vienna, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy (2010), Me Myself & Them, Kunstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria (2012) andre.act.feminism #2: A Performing Archive (travelling 2011-2013). A major monograph on the artist will be published in 2014 by Sammlung Verbund.
