Dara Friedman is a German-born artist and filmmaker working in Miami and New York. She uses everyday sights, sounds, and natural phenomena as the raw material for artworks that reverberate with emotional energy. With a background in structural film and dance, Friedman’s work calls for a radical reduction of form to its most essential properties. In place of linear storylines, her films and site-specific works typically portray straightforward actions and situations that unfold according to predetermined rules and guidelines. Yet for all of Friedman’s strenuous logic and discipline, her approach remains unabashedly sensual and emotive. Bearing rich imagery and a strong emphasis on bodily experience, her works generate moments of high-pitched, cathartic intensity as well as serene, even euphoric interludes.
Among her numerous solo shows are The Tiger’s Tail, San Carlo, Cremona, Italy (2022); Harburger Kunstverein (2019), a mid-career survey Dara Friedman: Perfect Stranger, Pérez Art Museum Miami (2017-2018), accompanied by a catalog raisonée published by Prestel, Aspen Art Museum (2017), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014), Museum of Contemporary Art of Detroit (2014), Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, North California (2012), Public Art Fund New York (2007), and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York (1998, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2014 and 2017), Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy (2002), Supportico Lopez, Berlin (2017), Galleria Franco Noero, Turin, Italy (2018), Kayne Griffin Corcoran (2014, 2017). Screenings and discussions of an on-going storytelling project Sky Woman Women (2024) have taken place at Buffalo Albright Knox Museum of Art, The New School for Social Research, Vassar College, Syracuse University, and other universities.
In addition to her exhibitions, Friedman has realized a series of permanent Environmental Earthworks, including Schlangensonne, Lanz’scher Park, Düsseldorf, Germany (2025); The Tiger’s Tail, San Carlo, Cremona, Italy (2022); River Hill (Silo City, Buffalo, University at Buffalo Arts Collaboratory, 2022); and The Empress (Miami, 2020). Major public collections include The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; French National Collection, and Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf. Friedman is a recipient of the Rome Prize (1999) and a Guggenheim Fellow (2019).