Peter Wächtler
°1979, Hannover, Germany
Works and lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.
In his work, Peter Wächtler explores existential issues such as alienation, fragility, failure, and the absurdity of human experience, all conveyed with a distinct blend of melancholy and dark humour. Employing a wide range of craft-oriented materials such as bronze, ceramic, clay, paper-mâché, and celluloid, he stages weary protagonists caught between pathos and the absurd. His characters, drawn from folklore, fables, cartoons, or working-class archetypes, are often so familiar that they topple into the realm of the estranged and uncanny. It is through storytelling, a central element in Wächtler’s practice – if not to say a medium in itself – that the artist creates scenarios which in turn describe psychological tensions and contemporary societal undercurrents.
Peter Wächtler’s practice is as much rooted in the making of images as it is in the impossibility of meaning. Through a poignant oeuvre seemingly more relevant today than ever, he combines craft, staging, and artifice to produce scenes onto which viewers are invited to project their own narrative, shaped by their individual and collective experiences. Amongst others, Wächtler’s notable 2024 survey exhibition Avant/Après at Le Consortium, Dijon, bore witness to the artist’s dramaturgical prowess, affirming his singular position within contemporary art as a revealer of the absurd theatre of everyday life.
