Harry´s Blog

No Art Without Artists/Revisited Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna October 23, 2007 – March 30, 2008

Reviewed by Herbert Kuhner

Padhi Frieberger’s exhibit at MAK is his first one man show ever. Over the years he has balked at exhibiting. Padhi does not want to participate. He is not a participant.

He has always gone his own way without compromising. However, thanks to the tenacity (and charm) of Maria Bussmann, the exhibit at MAK has become a reality.

In MAK there is a selection of his objects, paintings, photographs, mail arts and what-have-you. These compositions have been arranged into a marvelous composition in which each work acts as part of the whole by Maria Bussmann. As you walk through, being inside a giant Padhi work.

Maria Bussmann, Anna Friedl and Anna Mirfattahi have designed a catalogue which also represents the artist in every way. On its cover is a self-portrait, which consists of a frame and an upright brush. That’s Padhi!

What can I say about Padhi? I can say he has the touch. He lives art and everything he touches turns to art. He has in innate feeling for form and rhythm, and no matter what material he uses the end result is always a composition.

He knows that in order to break the rules, you have to follow rules. He hasn’t discarded the masters. He is a link in the chain. Being a link means being an innovator. There is no way of getting around the chain. You can only leave the past behind when you use it as a foundation. The way things are going, he may be one of the last links, or even the last link.

Padhi knows that form and content are the essence. Form has to frame content, and the frame has to fit.

You have to learn these things, but learning them guarantees nothing. Padhi didn’t learn them. They are a part of him. The gift has to be there. Padhi has it.

Here’s Padhi on his work and life: “I not only conceived my work; I lived it. I feel as an artist - even as the artist. Being an artist is essential for me; it is even more important than painting.”

A genius is at work here - and nobody takes notice!

This is just the beginning. Now people will notice. Padhi is here!

There are many who consider Padhi to be a peripheral figure.
This exhibit will scotch that view and prove them wrong.

Padhi is impossible to avoid in post-war Austrian art. He turns up everywhere like Zelig, the Woody Allen character. Zelig, was someone, or rather a nobody who just showed up, that is, he saw to it that he showed up. But although Padhi is omnipresent, he is definitely not a Zelig.

Padhi has been on the periphery of “the scene” for years - no for decades, but he is anything but a peripheral figure. He was always an innovator, always ahead of his time, continuing to work under conditions far from ideal, not letting lack of opportunities or recognition hold him back, not compromising or ingratiating himself to the powers-that-be, speaking and writing his mind regardless of the repercussions.

Certainly, Padhi has contributed to being on the periphery. Padhi the artist has stood in the way of Padhi the businessman. That is badly put. There is no Padhi the businessman. There’s just Padhi the artist.

Padhi doesn’t want to be promoted by a purveyor of junk and he doesn’t want his work to be part of a junk show.

He may have cancelled out many of his chances, but he didn’t cancel himself out. There is a price for integrity, and when you pay that price, you often can’t pay the bills. There were times Padhi lived from hand to mouth. But he survived. Yes, Padhi is here!

Padhi shines in the midst if mediocrity and trend!

Padhi on the game: “Do state-award recipients think that they are being truthful? Can a state-award recipient be an artist? He receives a prize, which is payment for playing the game, and everyone knows what the game is.”

Padhi has his finger on the pulse of time and he is able to convey the heartbeat to the materials he uses, be they objects, canvass, wood, cardboard, metal, camera - or simply his voice.

Padhi presents his social views in mail art collages that he sends out to his friends. It is his way of commenting on the injustices that occur in the world. All of man’s foibles find their way into Padhi’s collages.

For Padhi, art is very much connected to ethics and ethics are to be found in his work and ethics dictate his life style. I know how seldom these ingredients are combined, and I respect and love Padhi for what he does and what he is.

Padhi is committed to humanism as well as art, for the two are inseparable to him. Padhi goes against the grain. He is anything but “comfortable.” And for that there are repercussions.

Padhi goes his way no matter how hard and painful it may be. Not that Padhi wouldn’t like to reap financial fruits! But he has never stooped to pick them up, if attaining them meant stooping. Producing art is more important to him than the monetary aspect. And he produces as well as he can without the benefits and accouterments that money brings. When Padhi works, he has art in mind, not the marketing or the dough or bread that comes from the marketing. For him, art takes precedence over the marketing, since his art is created as art, and not merely as commodity to be sold.

We live in a society in which art is a commodity, and the selling of the product takes precedence over its intrinsic value.

Needless to say, Padhi does not mass produce. There is no assembly line. Padhi’s works are not commercial products.

Life has not always been kind to Padhi, Young Padhi was buried in the basement of a bombed building in the last phase of the war, before being dug out. And in post-war Austria the cultural powers-that-be did its best to bury him spiritually.

Here is an autobiographical quote:
“Critique of the meretricious:
The protagonist
ostracized
kept beyond the pale
and pushed onto a siding
by the organized “cultural establishment.”

Here’s more Padhi: “I feel like a descendent of modernism. Most of what came after van Gogh, Kandinski or Max Ernst had little to do with the ideas and the attitudes of those trailblazers. Wherever I look, all I see is ‘pseudo development.’ Those who participate are rather late in what they are doing. I never accepted what they are about. They paint and draw, and draw and paint, and sculpt - but artists, that’s not what they are.”

Padhi, who loves van Gogh, does not fit into the setup.

The paintings of van Gogh, who sold one painting in his lifetime, now sell for millions. But the work of this great artist, whose bitter life ended with suicide, is not bought and sold for its value as art. Van Gogh’s work, like the products of the charlatans who would not be worthy of licking his boots, is merely bought and sold as a commodity for the sake of speculation.

Padhi on the master: “If I had met van Gogh somewhere in the woods, I would have walked right up to him, for I would have recognized his genius, as well as what he could impart to others.”

Padhi is a foe of what he calls “mob art.” Mob art dons the guise of modern art, but it is anything but that.

Padhi makes comparisons: “The Nazis attempted to destroy art from the outside. Those who practice destruction today have taken over on the inside and destroy art from within.”

Padhi does not keep an index. Much of his work has been lost.

Years ago, Padhi filled three thick blank thick books with watercolors. Each page is painted on both sides. I paged through one in Gallery Macura in Vienna, where Padhi’s works are collected. I don’t want to throw the word “great” around, but let me say they are magnificent,

The second cannot be located.

The owner of the third tore pages out and had them auctioned at the Dorotheum, which is Austria’s combination of Christies and Sothebys.

Padhi’s life has been anything but a smooth ride, with a little help from his “friends.”

Here’s an example:

There’s a play by a notable dramatist in which a notable writer decides to build an artist up, and when he’s on the way to the top, he pulls the rug out from under the artist, bringing him all the way down and causing him to commit suicide.

Such delightful behavior is not untypical in the Austrian art scene, and the dramatist had the situation served to him on a silver tray.

The dramatist was Wolfgang Bauer, the writer was Konrad Bayer and the artist is Padhi Frieberger. But things didn’t quite work out the way the way they do in Change.

Here’s the way Padhi puts it: “The story is true. Konrad was my friend. But he turned on me in his pitch-black paranoia because he felt that my ability exceeded his. Things took their coursed, but his malice backfired, and he is the one who is dead.”

Padhi has persevered and survived.

Yes, Padhi is here.

At last we have a representative exhibit of Padhi Frieberger´s work. MAK is to be credited for presenting the work of this significant artist. I have attempted to sketch his life and work, but the work, like all great art speaks for itself. Yes, Padhi expresses his disdain for the political and cultural foibles and foolishness and brutality of our time, but whatever he does is done with skill and love.

Yes, Padhi expresses his disdain for the political and cultural foibles, foolishness and brutality of our time, but whatever he does is done with skill and love.

There can be art with anger,
but there cannot be art without love.

That’s what Padhi is about.

Fritz Kleibel - padhi.tv

Fritz Kleibel is director of Padhiland (1+2) and his recent filmic exhibit titled padhi.tv, which consists of a series of short films from 2 to 5 minutes long. Kleibel’s subject matter is the Austrian object artist and photographer Padhi Frieberger. In padhi.tv, we see Padhi in various locations. The camera presents him at work, washing pots, walking to a brook with a pail for water, opening and closing doors, and so on. These are vignettes of the life of one of Austria’s great contemporary artists, if not the greatest, who has gone his own way in reflecting our society in plastic, wood, canvass, cardboard and what-have-you collages. Fritz and Padhi have much in common as artists. They can take pieces from here and there and put them together to form a composition in which all segments fit to make a whole.

Fritz calls his short films “TV-Streams, fragmentary Web-Movies” and these in particular: “Padhi-Casts.” They are filmic short pieces, and each one tells a story that begins and ends with each cut, but yet continues to contribute to the entity of the whole film, which is a story in itself.

It is opportune that these artists have encountered each other to compliment each other. Padhi.tv has combined the essence of two very individual artists. It is a combination that is as unique as it is essential.