Art should not be holy—on the contrary. Art is a completely banal everyday matter for everyone.
— Hans-Peter Feldmann
Hans-Peter Feldmann (b. 1941, Hilden) was a Düsseldorf-based artist renowned for his pioneering role in conceptual art and his distinct engagement with the everyday. Active since the 1960s, Feldmann's work was rooted in appropriation, seriality, and a subtle exploration of the absurdities within the commonplace. His practice blended the formal clarity of American conceptual artists like John Baldessari and Richard Prince with the reflective depth of his German contemporaries, such as Gerhard Richter.
Feldmann’s work often revolved around his passion for collecting—images, objects, and stories from the mundane and the overlooked. His motto, "Art should not be holy—on the contrary. Art is a completely banal everyday matter for everyone," encapsulated his approach, transforming ordinary objects into art through acts of curatorial intervention.
Notable projects included the presentation of used handbags, purchased from women, with their contents—such as keys, business cards, and bank cards—displayed in glass vitrines. This series exemplified Feldmann's ability to elevate the unspectacular.
In 1980, Feldmann temporarily ceased his artistic production, destroyed much of his previous work, and withdrew from the art world to open a souvenir shop in Düsseldorf. A decade later, he resumed his practice, reaffirming his independence and conceptual rigor.
Feldmann was recognized for large-scale installations and interventions, including his six-meter-tall pink sculpture of David (after Michelangelo) and the kinetic installation Shadow Play (Schattenspiel) at the 2009 Venice Biennale. His work challenged the boundaries of art and value, as demonstrated by his 2008 Guggenheim installation, where he pinned $100,000 in dollar bills to the walls of the museum.
Feldmann first exhibited with Konrad Fischer in 2005, while his international career spanned over four decades. Notable exhibitions included solo shows at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2010) and the Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (2025-26), as well as group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017) and Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (2001–02). His extensive photographic series, often presented in the form of books, posters, and installations, continued to reflect his lifelong fascination with collecting visual culture.