PETER ZIMMERMANN AT NOSBAUM REDING
"Torrent"
- Until 26.03.22
© Courtesy of Nosbaum Reding Brussels
For his first personal exhibition at Nosbaum Reding Brussels, Peter Zimmermann (b. 1956, lives and works in Cologne) presents two series of recent works in which he continues to explore the possibilities of painting in the era of digital imaging. One of the most influential proponents of conceptual painting today, Zimmermann has constantly reinvented his practice in light of the ongoing technical developments that shape our ways of perceiving the world.
His epoxy paintings are based on images found on the Internet or from his own archives, which he digitally reworks and transposes onto the canvas in successive layers. Oscillating between transparency and depth of field, the resulting works are reminiscent of the colourful, glowing surfaces of computer screens.
In his oil paintings, this perplexing interplay between model and representation is taken to new heights. Their motifs are derived from photographs taken with a smartphone and processed with the help of a common app to the point of becoming unrecognisable. The resulting abstract patterns are then translated into painting through a manual process which, in a kind of ultimate mise en abyme, aims to imitate the industrial perfection of digital imagery.
By scrutinizing the relationships between original and copy, reality and illusion, craftsmanship and industrial production, Zimmermann questions the role of the artist at a time when human visual perception is profoundly unsettled by the pervasiveness of computer-based processes of representation.
Peter Zimmermann (b. 1956 in Freiburg im Briesgau) lives and works in Cologne. A graduate from the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart (1979–1984), he taught painting at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne from 2002 to 2007. For more than three decades, he has been experimenting with innovative editing and painting techniques that have established him as one of the leading German painters of his generation. His work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris; Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris; Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne; Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; Kunsthalle Bremen; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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