Federle spent his childhood and youth in St. Margrethen close to St. Gallen in Switzerland.
In the following year, Federle travelled to Tunisia and the United States, where he studied for example the works of Mark Rothko and Agnes Martin.
Together with his fellow artist and friend Martin Disler he exhibited in 1976 in the Kunstmuseum der Stadt Solothurn.
In 1979 and 1980, Federle lived in New York City where he was featured in the C-Space together with John M. Armleder, Olivier Mosset and Christoph Gossweiler.
From 1999 until 2007 he held a professorship at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and, in 2008, he received the Prix Aurelie Nemours.,[4] in 2016 the Ricola Prize.