Michael Riedel: Laws of Form, David Zwirner

German Artist Micheal Riedel brings his characteristically Frankfurt-ian conceptual art, and a career based on reproductions, to David Zwirner Gallery.

Seamlessly fitting into an influx of German art in London this year, David Zwirner are showing an exhibition by Frankfurt-based conceptual artist Michael Riedel. Whilst Riedel gained some UK attention after appearing in a group show at Tate Modern in 2009, this will be his first solo show in London and it looks set to spark more waves of interest. 

The early years...

As Riedel explained to Culture Whisper, the show is two exhibitions in one. Downstairs, he has hung work from a series called Oskar. Comprising of a lot of photocopied and found materials, Oskar is connected to a new book of the same title that will debut here. The name comes from Riedel’s experimental arts space that he created with friends out of a squat on Oskar-von-Miller Strasse in Frankfurt. He has said it was like "a giant copy machine" which sounds great fun, with a program of films, clubs, a monthly magazine and even weekly Friday-night dinners at Riedel's studio.

Out of this arts hub – itself cunningly reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s Factory – Riedel developed his obsession with restaging and reproducing. His fascination with remaking things extends across mediums including objects, events, audio recordings, even doctors texts. A disavowal of artistic authorship seems to be at the heart of many of these works. We see a poster by artist Jim Isermann, taken from an installation that was binned after a show, then rescued by Riedel and his friends, who then reinstalled them in their own space. In the show you will see copied works by old and new masters – from Egon Schiele to Richard Hamilton – and laid them out with tracings of the artworks overlaid on them. 

New Beginnings...

After Riedel moved to Berlin in 2005 the Oskar-von-Miller Strasse was demolished so, being Riedel, he started a copy of it in Berlin until 2009, before moving back to Frankfurt in 2010. He kept producing work, some of which makes up the second half of the show upstairs. Here, there's informational “wallpaper” pasted onto the walls as part of the Laws of Form  series that gives its title to the show. On the walls you’ll see screen prints inspired by PowerPoint , referencing the Microsoft program used for corporate presentations: an unconventional subject for art. But their content is recycled from earlier 'poster paintings, which included pre-existent ephemera.  Elsewhere, in Untitled (art materials) 2013, we see an image of a plastic bag from an art materials shop playfully combined with an image of a bird skeleton and an egg. Created on archival cardboard it provides a witty take on art's (and Riedel's) penchant for recording and reproducing While Riedel’s work is highly conceptual (and a bit of an exercise for the mind) it is far from dry. What this exhibition shows how he has a lot of fun making it. Take a visit  – you might be surprised by how much fun it really is.