Peter Wächtler
Crackers
Peter Wächtler’s practice includes writing, filmmaking, painting, drawing, and sculpture. Rich in motifs and media, his work often revolves around human figures and fragmentary narratives. Crackers presents a newly produced group of works made of canvas, steel, glass, porcelain, and industrial clay. The exhibition space is turned into a gradient between soft candlelight and common neon glare. This fade-out is apportioned by free-standing structures of display and division, segmenting the space into departments of sculpture and painting. In the dimly lit area, architectural models of the metro station with its distinctive butterfly roof are followed by unglazed porcelain sculptures. In the painting section, washed out chalk drawings are re-dispersed onto canvas depicting light situations ranging from explosive settings to moonlit stillness at varying degrees of abstraction.
Two of Wächtler’s video works are displayed in Simian’s recently established screening room. Untitled (Vampire), 2019, centres around an undead but all too human character personated by the artist himself. Evocative imagery is combined with intimate insights into the protagonist’s fears and feelings, desires and dreams. Like a palace, 2022, follows a group of time travellers through various epochs from the Stone Age and the ancient world to the industrial revolution and a potential future. The works, using the literary and the emotional in different ways, show both the wide range of the artist’s practice and its distinctiveness.
Crackers is supported by Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, New Carlsberg Foundation, Dansk Tennis Fond, Lizzy og Mogens Staal Fonden, Danish Arts Workshops and Egernsund Wienerberger.
Opening on 12 October, 4-10pm
At Simian, Copenhagen