Since the late 1990s, Michael Riedel has advanced his own model of a self-sustaining artistic production, continuously using reproductions as a means to "reintroduce the system of art into the art system." His practice has incorporated a wide range of media and included large-scale works on canvas, fabric works, film and video, audio recordings, installations, and events. A central focus is the production and design of books, catalogues, brochures, posters, and invitation cards; these works often accompany and document his exhibitions.
Read MoreThe artist was born in 1972 and currently lives and works in Frankfurt, where he received a Meisterschüler at the Städelschule in 2000. The same year, he launched the experimental artist space Oskar-von-Miller Strasse 16 in Frankfurt. Using the building’s address as the name for the space, Riedel restaged cultural events—book readings, film screenings, art exhibitions, and music concerts—held at other locations throughout the city, effectively duplicating them in space and time. In 2004, communal dinners were introduced at the venue, which following a temporary relocation to Berlin now exists in its third iteration at a new address in Frankfurt. The communal dinners continue under the name Freitagsküche.
In 2013, Riedel was invited by the Palais de Tokyo in Paris to create a series of three site-specific installations in the museum's event space. His first presentation in the space was shown July 2013 to April 2014. Titled Jacques comité [Giacometti], the artist covered the walls and floor with 4073 "o's" extracted from the transcript of a recording made during the deinstallation of a Giacometti exhibition at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Currently on view is Riedel's second installation, Dual air [Dürer], which repurposes materials from a recent Albrecht Dürer show at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt (through April 2017).
Over the past decade, Riedel has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at prominent venues throughout the United States and Europe. In 2012, his work was the subject of a major survey, Kunste zur Text, at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. Other venues which have hosted recent solo exhibitions include the Kunstverein Hamburg (2010); Städel Museum, Frankfurt (2009 and 2008); and the Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria (2007). The artist has participated in a number of international group shows, including those organized by the Sprengel Museum Hannover (2012); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2011); Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM), Turin (2010); Tate Modern, London (2009); Kunsthalle Bern (2008 and 2006); Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, France (2007); Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005); and the Secession, Vienna (2003).
