installationview "bilderglauben", Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin, 2005

Self portraits

Based on famous paintings by old masters (such as "Innocent X." by Velazquez, "The 4 Apostles" or "Adam and Eve" by Albrecht Duerer) Peter Freitag created these self-potrait photopieces.

The showcased works are digital collages, which use on the one hand found material from fashion magazines (bodies and backgrounds) and on the other hand real portrait-photos. Put together they show self-portraits of the artist in poses that are modelled after historical paintings – partly with additional actors from his immediate living environment.

Through the way of collaging the pieces – as well as the choice of the picture sources – the shown work alludes to different idealized worlds at the same time. The world of advertisment and fashion as well as the world of the arts and the world of religion becomes a subject. All these worlds confront us with idealized figures or models that will remain unattained for most of us.The persons in the collages are put artficially into these worlds – or those idealized worlds are somehow ironically disrupted by confronting them with the mundane.

installationview "Querköpfe", Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin, 2008 (front left: Peter Freitag)

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