Born in 1963 near Frankfurt, Germany, Friedhard Kiekeben is an international artist whose artworks and site specific environments merge concept, digital thought and science with tangible human experience, visceral physicality, the real and the simulated, in metal or wallpaper, pixels and paint.
The following traces the artists journey from its minimal and postmodern roots into the post-pandemic mid 2020s. Should AI bots make art? Are NFTs art? In the words of Walter Benjamin, does concept art have aura? Or, should artists try to reconnect with more tangible physical expression for instance through paint, pixel, and gesture?
The urgent validity of these questions is explored in overpaintings.
From the mid 1980s to the late 1990s the artist made sculptural works and walldrawings that explored an expanded notion of print as contemporary art through print / plate and copy / matrix installations that bridged two dimensional and three dimensional space.
In 1993 this culminated in the work ‘Transit’ shown at Gulbenkian galleries at the RCA, London, followed by a move to Scotland.
(The same year a research career emerged as an artist / scientist with a mission to explore and help establish new and safer methods in the making of art – making art without risking life and health and establishing new methods and materials along the way.)
The first more Sol LeWitt inspired wall drawings from the series ‘Friction’ & ‘Crystal’ were made in 1995, 96, 98., and shown at galleries across the UK, Germany, and Switzerland.
Some of this work is held in art collections, and some of the ideas carry through into current work, ever changing and adapting, while being to true to some form of original pattern, experience, or elemental force.
The walldrawings Deva and Cascade, made in 2005 and 2006, were the first pieces being digitally printed rather than realized through the older forms of intaglio, offset and silkscreen printing to create an immersive and site specific experience.
The same year also brought a move to Chicago, and in 2008 the public piece ‘Pillar Wrap’ appeared in downtown Chicago, followed by other works from the ‘Loop’ series in Chicago and Basel (Tumble).
Recent Highlights include:
Tourbillon, Chicago, Frankfurt
