Art Material

“Like the Gemini magic spell, where objects multiply at the slightest touch, and the multiplications in turn continue to multiply, my works are, in short, witnesses to a temporally continuing process within the art system”
–Michael Riedel

GRIMM is proud to announce the first solo exhibition by Michael Riedel at the gallery. The opening on Friday November 23 will coincide with this year’s Amsterdam Art Weekend Gallery Night.

Michael Riedel (born 1972, Rüsselsheim, DE) is a multidisciplinary artist who works primarily with texts and printed material. His work is currently the subject of a major solo exhibition Graphic Art as Event at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt.

Riedel’s practice revolves around referential post-production. He uses materials created by others, as well as events and happenings which he translates into new iterations that challenge notions of authorship. The variety of media Riedel uses, including text, audio, painting and performance, are cannibalized and repeated in endless loops and permutations.

For this presentation, four of the artist’s recent paintings are featured all of which demonstrate his signature style. These works have been created using texts found on the websites of various art supply stores which Riedel refers to as “undefined art material.” The raw HTML source code, which configures the way the original texts appear, is appropriated by silk-screening fragments of code onto canvas. This use of source code serves as a form of abstraction, resulting in a transfer that constitutes new content in its own right. The idea that all text describing art material can be defined as art material, is a through-line that is central to Riedel’s practice. Reproducing specific systems of notation and communication results in a parallel visual language or a never-ending ‘overwriting’ process.

About the artist
Michael Riedel (1972, Rüsselsheim, DE) was trained at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (DE). Städelschule, Frankfurt (DE) and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (FR). Over the past decade, Riedel has participated widely in solo and group exhibitions at venues throughout the United States and Europe.

His works have been exhibited in MoMA, New York (US); Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR); Tate Modern, London (UK), Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt (DE); Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris (FR); Kunsthalle, Zurich (CH); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (FR); Städel Museum, Frankfurt (DE); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz (AT); Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (AT); Judisches Museum Wien, Vienna (AT); Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park (US); GAM, Turin (IT).
Riedel’s work can be found in major public and private collections such as: Fondation Pinault, Venice (IT); MoMA, New York (US); Kunsthaus, Zurich, (CH); Yuz Fondation, Hong Kong (HK); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL) and Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR) among others.