In Zusammenarbeit mit dem Verlag Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg und dem Schauspielhaus Hamburg zeigte die Galerie Friebe Lüdenscheid/Düsseldorf im jahr 2001 erstmals in Europa Fotoprints des Kanadiers Douglas Coupland (*1961).

Douglas Coupland im märz 2002 zu seinen Arbeiten:

BEAUTIFUL STAINS

It’s easy for me to make something look good, and I’m not coy about it. Years of being inside all levels of the global media machine have given me an ability to "art direct” whatever I need to. Less effortless has been the integration of both personal and critical dimensions into visual bodies of work.

I’m 39. With aging comes inescapable sorrows and mixed blessings -- nobody is exempt. What has particularly surprised me is how deeply the suffering of people in my life has affected both the way I relate to the world, and the sort of visual work I in turn create.

I’m also taken aback by the power and sting with which suppressed feelings and desires demand to make themselves known. This is a recent thing with me. In 1998 I wouldn’t have believed it possible. Between 1990 and 2000 I created almost no visual work. As a writer, my emotions were channeled into words rather than optical artifacts.

The pieces presented here in this show represent, as far as I can tell, a nascent sensibility in play. They are conscious critical exercises in generating new forms by alloying mind and spirit. I feel simultaneously embarrased and inspired by writing claims such as these – that peculiar alloy of irony and commitment that defines the current era. But I don’t think it’s possible to enter the other side of the mirror — or the future — without crossing this particular moral landscape.