Peter Fend

Peter Fend (b.1950, Columbus, Ohio) is a truly unique artist whose work transgresses the boundaries of architecture, design, activism, urban planing and art-history. Fend has worked from a position within the art world, using research, territorial plans and designs to propose solutions to a range of environmental and geo-political issues that have the potential to influence governments, corporations, policy-makers and individuals. Fends position advocates strongly for the engagement of art in the public sphere, to incorporate its transformative vision into the architectures and sociopolitical systems governing the world and its resources, reimagining the order between the social and the natural worlds. His expansive practice encourages the examination of how art functions within society and the inhabited world, indeed questioning and expanding considerations of art itself.

In 1980, in collaboration with a number of different artists, Fend created a corporate entity now known as the Ocean Earth Development Corporation. In the 1980’s, OEDC researched and monitored satellite imagery that were largely used in investigate reporting efforts, with the conceptual aim of sells art-sourced projects to non-art clients. Today, Fend presents work across a variety of mediums in site specific installations and situations. These works aim to propose solutions to real world problems, questioning the hegemonic representations and organisation of territory by nation states.

Fends work has been exhibited in the 47th Venice Biennale (2003), the 45th Venice Biennale (1999), Documenta IX, Kassel (1992) and in numerous shows internationally including at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich (2020), Second Yinchuan Biennale,Yinchuan (2018), Bard Hessel Museum, New York (2018), MUMOK, Vienna (2015), Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus (2015), Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus (2015), Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva (2010), Galerie für Landschaftskunst, Hamburg (2007), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2004).