Gloria Friedmann was born in Kronach, Germany in 1950 and lives in Aignay-le-duc, France. She has been exhibiting as an artist since 1980 when she had a one-person show at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris and was represented at the Paris Biennale. Since this time she has had an extensive number of individual and group exhibitions across Europe and in the United States.
Her work since the 1980’s has consisted of installations of live animals, including domestic pets such as caged canaries or rabbits or farm animals such as oxen, cows, horses, or stuffed animals and remains, to create 'tableux vivants': living temporary installations in which animals are placed in urban environments alongside items of contemporary material culture: shopping trolleys, cars, oil drums etc. In her still lifes or ‘vanitas’, Friedmann draws attention to ecologoical issues and the fragility of all living things, including the environment. At the crossover of metaphysical thought and futuristic visions, Friedmann draws on the symbolism of the tableaus she stages to question the dichotomies between nature, biology and technology that question the evolution of humanity.
There have been many exhibitions of her work, including solo shows at the Centre Pompidou, Paris 1995 and 1980, the Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France 2013 and Kunststation in Cologne, Germany 2003 and group shows such as Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2013, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France 2009, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France, 2007, MUMOK in Vienna, Austria 2000, Documenta 8 in Kassel, Germany in 1987. Her works are included in public and museum collectons across Europe.