Lot 473 D

In his oeuvre, Peter Feldmann refers to the perception and status of art and its relationship to society. One method he developed for this is to disband the exalted character of works of art through minor interventions. In paintings of the old masters, he makes the depicted subjects squint, for example, or he anonymises them by painting black bars over their eyes. In the present work, he reworks two old masters' portraits by embellishing the subjects with red clown's noses. Hereby, apart from the humoristic aspect of the initial impression, the artist playfully refers to the traditions of Western art and challenges their value by trivialising them. As in the case of all the painter's works, this diptych also remains unsigned. In this way, Hans-Peter Feldmann expresses his disapproval of the artistic genius cult and raises the issue of originality and authorship.
“Because he transgresses the boundaries set by art categories, Feldmann's work, when correlated with the art world, gains a greater meaning in its banal and unpretentious objecthood. It suggests not only the interpretation of the artwork but also raises the question of the artwork's essence”. (Helena Tatay (ed.), 272 Pages, in: exhib.cat. Fundacio Antoni Tapies i.a., Barcelona 2001, p.284).