Peter Fritzenwallner - Things on the Move

Finely balanced, almost weightlessly, the pencil seems to find its place in the center of the image, it de-picts simultaneously time itself, the time elapsed during the movement. A Portrait of Peter Fritzenwallner

Flow, chance intervention, to all these he added the structure...ease and gravity, imbalance and equilibrium, arrest our attention and along the way the most precious is being consumed: time.

Usually art appears in the shape of a finished object, in order to be consumed by the viewer, with his drawing machine Fritzenwallner manages to include the observer into the artistic endeavour as active participant, he becomes a user able to produce abstract works of art by mechanical means, where no piece is alike the other.

Contrasting what the pencil and the apparatus / user create naturally, permits to elucidate the nature of one and the other in a more defined manner.

Wood and metal pieces are the artists material of choice for his pieces, oscillating between playful humour and ominous aggressiveness, they provide a ironic spoof of the production mode of the art industry, Fritzenwallners artistic approach is movement being made experienced visually and acoustically.

In his work he presents more than subjects or objects, but rather reality or its manifestations, as sound or movement, be it mechanically or in the perception, to the point of moving the viewer / participant physically.

He proposes an expansion of aesthetic experience by the artificial, where the role of meaning is twofold: in form and function, or aesthetics and pragmatics, where meaning is not founded within the object and is being constantly re-negotiated in the relationship between the object and its user.

He questions our right to a "meaning", as if it were an expression that in itself does not provoke challenging the prerequisites of its usage.

Fritzenwallners objects have no source in reality; they consist of momentum and themes, enabled through the manipulation of artificial objects.

He offers us the triumph of his creative will in a world where reality is no more a point of reference.

Sense, meaning becomes a strategic concept existing pragmatically, in the interface between art and its use. Its value is defined by operational rather than semantic concerns, without ethical imperatives or an inner sense as point of reference.

The dialectic between assimilation of the material to the idea and the adjustment of the idea to the material is the background of his art. His idea and the product that emerges in the course of the intervention, evolve each until they merge in the eye and mind of the viewer, even causing the original idea to disappear.

The arrangement of forms in a work by Fritzenwallner is always provisional, every piece moves in a constantly renewed relation to the others, by virtue of which the possibilities of the object are determined by parameters like equilibrium and its distribution, the length of circuits, the weight of components - this organised capriciousness offers a spoof on mechanics where modes of operation never exactly produce the expected results. The visual subtlety contrasts with the simplicity of the machinery and the familiarity of the object from everyday life.

Processes, activity, change is everywhere, objects that demand intervention, to be used. The distance between art and viewers diminishes. Meaning is made accessible in the use of the objects, the artwork is completed only by its usage and a certain intimacy between the work and user is being generated.
Short version: Finely balanced, almost weightlessly, the pencil seems to find its place in the center of the image, it de-picts simultaneously time itself. A Portrait of Peter Fritzenwallner. (ca)

http://www.pfff.at/

Interviewee: Peter Fritzenwallner
Artworks by: Peter Fritzenwallner

Copyright info: The audio and video recording has been made with personal permission of the artist.
Licensing: 0
Language(s): German, English
Subtitles: German, English
Producer: KA21 GmbH / CastYourArt
Production crew: Cédrik Kaub, Cem Angeli, Ewa Stern
Production country: Austria, Vienna