Peter Weibel

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Peter Weibel

Peter Weibel (born 5 March 1944 in Odessa, USSR) is an artist, curator and theoretician.

Contents

Biography[edit]

Raised in Upper Austria he started to study French and cinematography in Paris. In 1964 he began to study medicine in Vienna, but changed soon to mathematics, with an emphasis on logic.

Peter Weibel’s oeuvre can be described in the following categories: Conceptual Art, Performance, Experimental Film, Video art and Computer art.

Starting from semiotic and linguistic reflections (Austin, Jakobson, Peirce, Wittgenstein, ...) as from 1965 Peter Weibel developed an artistic language, which led him from experimental literature to performance. In his performative actions he explores not only the "media" language and body, but also film, video, audiotape and interactive electronic environments. Critically he analyzes their function for the construction of reality. Besides taking part in happenings with members of the Vienna Actionism he develops as from 1967 (together with Valie Export, Ernst Schmidt jr. and Hans Scheugl) an "expanded cinema". It is inspired by the American Expanded Cinema and reflects the ideological and technological conditions of cinematic representation. Peter Weibel elaborates these reflections as from 1969 in his video tapes and installations. With his television action "tv und vt works", which is broadcast by the Austrian Television (ORF) in 1972 he transcends the borders of the gallery space and queries video technology in its application as a mass medium.

Peter Weibel follows his artistic aims using a large variety of materials, forms and techniques: text, sculpture, installation, film and video. In 1978 he turns to music. Together with Loys Egg he founds the band "Hotel Morphila Orchester". In the mid 1980s he explores the possibilities of computer aided video processing. Beginning of the 1990s he realizes interactive computer-based installations. Here again he addresses the relation between media and the construction of reality.

In his lectures and articles Weibel comments on contemporary art, media history, media theory, film, video art and philosophy. As theoretician and curator he pleads for a form of art and art history that includes history of technology and history of science. In his function as a university professor and director of institutions like the Ars Electronica, Linz, the Institute for New Media in Frankfurt and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe he influenced the European Scene of the so called Computer art through conferences, exhibitions and publications.[1]

Research and teaching[edit]

As from 1976 Peter Weibel teaches at numerous universities, among others at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada und the Gesamthochschule Kassel. In 1984 he is appointed to teach for five years as Associate Professor for Video and Digital Arts at the Center for Media Study at the State University of New York in Buffalo, New York. The same year, 1984 he becomes Professor for visual media at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, where he is teaching until today. In 1989 he is assigned to set up the Institute for New Media at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, which he heads until 1994.

Curatorial activities[edit]

Since 1986 Peter Weibel works as artistic advisor for the Ars Electronica, which he then heads from 1992 until 1995 as its artistic director. From 1993 to 1999 he curates the pavilion of Austria on the Venice Biennial. In the same period, from 1993 to 1999, he works as chief curator at the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria. Since January 1999 Peter Weibel is Chairman and CEO of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media.

  • 2011 The Global Contemporary Kunstwelten nach 1989 (with Andrea Buddensieg), ZKM | Center for Art and Media
  • 2011 Moderne: Selbstmord der Kunst? Im Spiegel der Sammlung der Neuen Galerie Graz (with Christa Steinle and Gudrun Danzer), Neue Galerie Graz
  • 2011 Bruseum. Ein Museum für Günter Brus (with Anke Orgel), Neue Galerie Graz
  • 2011 Hans Hollein (with Günther Holler-Schuster), Neue Galerie Graz
  • 2011 Francesco Lo Savio – Tano Festa. The Lack of the Other (with Freddy Paul Grunert), ZKM | Center for Art and Media
  • 2008 youniverse, International Biennal of Contemporary Arts, Sevilla
  • 2005 Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht (with Gregor Jansen), ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
  • 2005 Making Things Public (with Bruno Latour), ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
  • 2003 M_ARS: Kunst und Krieg (with Günther Holler-Schuster), Neue Galerie Graz
  • 2002 Future Cinema (with Jeffrey Shaw), ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
  • 2002 Iconoclash (with Bruno Latour), ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
  • 2000/2001 Olafur Eliasson: Surroundings surroanded, Neue Galerie Graz and ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
  • 2000 Net_condition (with Walter van der Crijusen, Johannes Goebel, Golo Foellmer, Hans-Peter Schwarz, Jeffrey Shaw, Benjamin Weill) ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
  • 1999/2000 Der anagrammatische Körper Kunsthaus Muerz, Muerzzuschlag | Neue Galerie, Graz and ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe
  • 1999 Open Practice, 48th Venice Biennale
  • 1998 Jenseits von Kunst, MUHKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerpen; Neue Galerie, Graz; Ludwig-Museum, Budapest
  • 1996 Inklusion: Exklusion, Steirischen Herbst 96, Graz
  • 1993 Kontext Kunst, Neue Galerie Graz
  • 1991 Das Bild nach dem letzten Bild (with Kaspar König), Galerie Metropol, Vienna
  • 1990 Vom Verschwinden der Ferne (with Edith Decker), Postmuseum, Frankfurt on the Main
  • 1987 Logokultur, Universitaet fuer angewandte Kunst, Vienna
  • 1976 Österreichs Avantgarde 1908-38 (with Oswald Oberhuber), Galerie naechst St. Stephan, Vienna

Decorations and awards[edit]

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.

Critique[edit]

In September 2010, media scholar Stefan Weber pointed out that Weibel never actually submitted his PhD dissertation — in spite of the fact that Weibel regularly mentions it in his biography.[4] At the same time, the Viennese mathematician Werner DePauli-Schimanovich admitted that he had written Weibel's incomplete PhD thesis.[5]

Critics deem Weibel "yesterday's popular science artist"[6] and his public appearances "nostalgia shows". As Thomas Kramar puts it, Weibel's "art" is an "embarrassing reminder" that there was once "a time, when morsels from popular science counted as cool in pop, the more vague the better".[6] In fact, Kramar argues, Weibel's borrowings from theory are so much "nonsense [Blödsinn] on stilts".[6]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Weibel, Peter; Valie Export (1970). Bildkompendium Wiener Aktionismus und Film (in German). Frankfurt: Kohlkunstverlag. 
  • Weibel, Peter (1973). Kritik der Kunst. Kunst der Kritik: es says & I say (in German). Vienna, Munich: Jugend & Volk. 
  • Weibel, Peter (1982). Arbeiten in den Medien Sprache, Schrift, Papier, Stein, Foto, Ton, Film und Video aus zwanzig Jahren (in German). Vienna, Munich: Jugend & Volk. ISBN 3-224-16617-7. 
  • Catalog (1992). Peter Weibel. Malerei zwischen Anarchie und Forschung (in German). Graz: Neue Galerie. 
  • Catalog (1992). Robert Fleck (Ed.), ed. Peter Weibel. Zur Rechtfertigung der hypothetischen Natur der Kunst und der Nicht-Identität in der Objektwelt (in German). Cologne: Grunnert. ISBN 3-88375-166-9. 
  • Romana Schuler (Ed.), ed. (1996). Peter Weibel. Bildwelten 1982 - 1996 (in German). Vienna: Triton. ISBN 3-901310-21-5. 
  • Catalog (1999). Peter Weibel: Globale Gier (in German). Klagenfurt: Kärntner Landesgalerie. ISBN 3-88375-166-9. 
  • Catalog (2004). Marcus Huemer, Wilhelm Meusburger (Ed.), ed. B-Picture (in German). Frankfurt a. M.: Revolver, Archiv für Aktuelle Kunst. ISBN 3-937577-75-0. 
  • Ecke Bonk, Peter Gente, Margit Rosen (Ed.), ed. (2004). 05-03-44: Liebesgrüsse aus Odessa: für Peter Weibel (in German). Berlin: Merve-Verlag. ISBN 3-88396-194-9. 
  • Alfred Kolleritsch, Christa Steinle (Ed.), ed. (2004). Peter Weibel: X-Dream (in German). Graz: Droschl. ISBN 3-85420-671-2. 
  • Weibel, Peter (2004). Gamma und Amplitude: medien- und kunsttheoretische Schriften (in German). Berlin: Fundus. ISBN 3-86572-515-5. 
  • Weibel, Peter (2006). Das offene Werk 1964-1979 (in German). Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz. ISBN 978-3-7757-1539-3. 
  • "Peter Weibel": Sarah Cook, Verina Gfader, Beryl Graham & Axel Lapp, A Brief History of Curating New Media Art - Conversations with Curators, Berlin: The Green Box, 2010: pp. 27–37. ISBN 978-3-941644-20-5.

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ Wolf Lieser. Digital Art. Langenscheidt: h.f. ullmann. 2009. p. 38
  2. ^ "Reply to a parliamentary question" (pdf) (in German). p. 1292. Retrieved 15 January 2013. 
  3. ^ "Reply to a parliamentary question" (pdf) (in German). p. 1915. Retrieved 15 January 2013. 
  4. ^ Zweifel an Dissertation von Peter Weibel - science.ORF.at/APA 27. September 2010
  5. ^ http://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20100925_OTS0004/profil-zweifel-an-dissertation-von-peter-weibel
  6. ^ a b c Thomas Kramar, '"Der Hammer Gottes" in 3-D: Peter Weibel spielt Urknall', Die Presse (Wien), 27. April 2013, S. 26

External links[edit]


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