Ferdinand Kriwet

The first floor of the Kunsthalle is given over to an exhibition of the works, both past and present, of Ferdinand Kriwet (Germany, *1942). This is the first time that the German artist exhibits in Switzerland.

In the mid-1960s, Ferdinand Kriwet brought experimental poetry to three-dimensional platforms – museums, art galleries and even public spaces – in the form of films, paintings, books, installations and performance pieces. His solo exhibition at Friart features artists books, slideshows and films from the late 1960s, as well as a series of 10 visual poems from the earlier half of the decade (1960-1963), which he made with stamped letters. Also on show are several large-scale artists’ books, which date from the last eight years and were produced on a photocopier.

The work and experiments of Ferdinand Kriwet reflect the permeability that emerged between media and disciplines during the first half of the 20th century. From then until the late 1970s, artists would constantly seek to challenge the prevailing spatial and institutional conventions through their work. Like other thinkers and artists of his generation, such as Vito Acconci, Umberto Eco, Dick Higgins, Achille Bonito Oliva, Dieter Roth or Daniel Spoerri, Ferdinand Kriwet cut his teeth in the world of concrete poetry, the book page dealing as a field of experimentation in miniature. Through these practices they sought to break up the established order and expand one space into the next, and one medium into another.