Robert Filliou | how to see Robert Filliou | Galerie Barbara Wien | 07.03.-15.04.2026

 until 15.04. | #4961ARTatBerlin | Galerie Barbara shows from 7. März 2026 the exhibition how to see Robert by the artist Robert Filliou.

“What the visitor knows is enough. To accept the ‘knowledge that one knows,’ but also to ‘know what knowledge is’—that is the spirit of Permanent Creation.” – Robert Filliou / Joachim Pfeufer in Le Poipoidrome Ambulant 00, 1975

“I thought I could measure things according to the criterion of the moment. For example, I am a little over sixty tomatoes tall, and I am 111,225 Copenhagen–Paris train journeys old.” – Robert Filliou in an interview with Irmeline Lebeer-Hossmann, 1976

“Robert Filliou is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Perhaps it will take the 21st century to recognize this.” Curator Anders Kreuger finds clear words for Robert Filliou, whom he presents not only as an artist but also as a playwright, poet, and thinker. In 2017, Kreuger curated a major retrospective at M HKA in Antwerp titled The Secret of Permanent Creation, accompanied by an outstanding publication. It was the fourth retrospective dedicated to Filliou since 1984. Although Filliou’s actions—he died in 1987—and even the retrospectives of his work now lie well in the past, Kreuger notes in the preface to his book that “it never felt as if we were working with historical material. Filliou’s thinking and work speak to us directly today.” He emphasizes Filliou’s relevance: “He is a voice for our time, speaking of political and poetic economy, of curiosity and research that are more than ‘a privilege for the knowledgeable.’” Kreuger summarizes what makes Filliou so unique: “He attempts to find new names for what he does and makes. Instead of making art, he speaks of Permanent Creation or of the ‘Genius Republic of Research.’” Kreuger calls this extraordinary ability of Filliou “systematically free thinking.”

how to see is a new exhibition series at Galerie Barbara Wien, opening on March 7, 2026, with works by Robert Filliou. We will present a selection of original works, prints, multiples, books, texts, and ephemera.

In addition, we will screen the film Porta Filliou, produced in 1977 during an Arton’s residency in Calgary by Filliou together with Marcella Bienvenue and Clive Robertson. Porta Filliou is a video complement to Filliou’s book Teaching and Learning as Performing Arts. Visitors will also have the opportunity to listen to the work Whispered History of Art (1963). With this exhibition, we offer an informative yet entertaining introduction to Filliou’s art and innovative thinking.

With the exhibition series how to see, we introduce—through original works, documents, and texts—the artistic concepts of the artists presented. We show material from the gallery, the bookshop, and the print cabinet. Rare as well as available books and texts can be studied and acquired. In some cases, we complement the works with ephemera, posters, and invitation cards. The title of the exhibition series how to see can be read in two ways: first as the question, How do we view artistic concepts today? And second: How does the artist perceive the world?

As a brief introduction to the first part of how to see, we would like to point out some of Filliou’s central ideas: Filliou developed a new understanding of what art could be. He used chance and play to create sculptural platforms and counter-models, thereby questioning both the role of art and the notion of art as a finished product. For Filliou, the artwork was not the end of a creative process, but its beginning. As early as the early 1960s, Filliou participated in the Fluxus movement and began to question the boundaries of art and to expose the conventions and structures of institutions, while at the same time proposing alternative models of artistic production and exchange. It is worth noting that his artistic career—like that of Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri, and Dieter Roth, to name just three—began in 1961 with an exhibition at Galerie Køpcke in Copenhagen, founded by the German-Danish artist Arthur Køpcke.

Køpcke’s influence on the concepts of the artists he exhibited deserves more attention in art history than it has received so far.

One example of a counter-model by Robert Filliou is the platform Poipoidrom, which he conceived together with architect Joachim Pfeufer in 1963 as “a functional relationship between reflection, action, and communication.” A central aspect of this work is the activation and encouragement of the audience: “One does not need to ‘learn’ anything in order to follow the actions and reflections of the Poipoidrom. What the visitor knows is enough. To accept the ‘knowledge that one knows,’ but also to ‘know what knowledge is’—that is the spirit of Permanent Creation.” (Robert Filliou / Joachim Pfeufer, Le Poipoidrome Ambulant 00, 1975) Poipoidrom is among the first works in which Filliou formulated his central concept of “Permanent Creation.” Filliou writes: “I was interested in Permanent Creation, and I use this word much more often than the word art, because I practice art as creativity…” (Robert Filliou, The Eternal Network Presents, 1984/85, p. 52)

Another counter-model is his invention of Art’s Birthday. Filliou, born on January 17, 1926, declared on January 17, 1963, that art had been born exactly 1,000,000 years earlier, when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Ten years later, he celebrated the 1,000,010th birthday of art at the Neue Galerie in Aachen. Since then, January 17 has been celebrated annually as Art’s Birthday—a fixed date for reflecting on the meaning of art and the measurement of time.

The “Principle of Equivalence” is another challenging concept by Filliou. In 1968, at the invitation of Alfred Schmela, his gallerist in Cologne, he formulated the “Principle of Equivalence” as a central element of “Permanent Creation”: “WELL MADE / BADLY MADE / NOT MADE.” He explains: “In the spirit of Permanent Creation, I propose that these possibilities are equivalent.” The principle points to Filliou’s intensive engagement with Zen Buddhism, which he encountered while working for the United Nations in South Korea between 1951 and 1954. This philosophy fundamentally changed his life and shaped his later artistic thinking.

Robert Filliou (born 1926 in Sauve, southern France) was part of the Resistance movement in 1943. After the end of the Second World War, he moved to the United States, where he worked for Coca-Cola and studied economics in Los Angeles.

In the early 1950s, he went to South Korea as an economist on behalf of the United Nations to contribute to the country’s post-war reconstruction plan. After extensive travels around the world, he returned to France in 1959. Around this time, he created his first action poems and his first visual work, L’Immortelle Mort du Monde, an aleatory theater piece in the form of a text collage. In 1961, Filliou had his first exhibition at Galerie Arthur Køpcke in Copenhagen. In January 1962, he founded the Galerie Légitime, which consisted of his hat, in which he exhibited his own works as well as those of friends. With Galerie Légitime, he participated in the Festival of Misfits in London and in further Fluxus festivals, becoming one of the central figures of the Fluxus movement.

In 1966, he wrote his Principles of Poetic Economy, which in 1968 led to the formulation of his key concepts “Equivalence” and “Permanent Creation.” After a period in Düsseldorf, he returned to France in 1975. Near Nice, he declared a former oil mill to be the “1st Territory of the République Géniale.”

In October 1984, he withdrew to a Buddhist monastery for 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days, where he died on December 2, 1987.

Exhibitions date: Saturday, 7. March until Thursday, 15. April 2026

Image caption: * Robert Filliou at his apartment in rue des Roziers, 1964. Photo: Vera Spoerri

Exhibition Robert Filliou – Galerie Barbara Wien | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exh+ibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin