Hans-Peter Feldmann separates art from marketing. On the one hand there is his work as an artist which he has emphasised for a long time is independent of the art market, a principle which he is one of the few artists of his generation to have consistently followed. On the other hand there was his Düsseldorf shop (until 1994), his finger-hat mail order firm and recently his metal toy company which he has never declared as art. J. Doyne Farmer comes to a very similar conclusion in the field of science. In order to preserve the independence of his research in the field of "the complexity of non-linear systems" he founded the Prediction Company, with which he wants to free himself from relationships dependent on grants. In the seventies Hans-Peter Feldmann tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate pictures without a caption or commentary into the Düsseldorf newspapers. In the Standard he has been able to approach a realisation of his work but the pictures could not appear totally without commentary and the museum in progress logo had to accompany them. The reasons for this are explained by Michael Sedivy (director of the publishers) in the interview "The Newspaper as a Virtual Museum" (see "Vital Use 04").
(Hans-Ulrich Obrist)
Vital Use