
Freiburg School - Artist in Focus - Peter Zimmermann - June 2016
The exhibition Freiburg School presents the new body of work by the artist Peter Zimmermann. He is an outstanding exponent of conceptual painting. His work has a rigorous theoretical underpinning and gives rise to paintings of immense visual power. Zimmermann has been exploring the potential of painting ever since the mid-1980s. He is particularly well known for his often large-format paintings which he makes by manipulating digital templates – be they photographs, film stills or diagrams – with the aid of computer programmes and digital filters, duly transferring them onto the canvas in several layers of transparent epoxy resin. This method gives rise to stunningly colourful, abstract paintings.
In the exhibition Freiburg School, Zimmermann has radically transformed the rooms in the museum to create a single integrated, walk-in work in which the floor becomes a canvas, the exhibition venue a colossal spatial frieze. The focal point of the exhibition is the place where two distinct groups of works confront one another: the epoxy works on the floor made especially for the exhibition and a series of more recent oil paintings on the walls, which are being shown in this configuration for the first time. Compositionally, the paintings on the walls were made using a similar manipulation process as the works in epoxy.
Freiburg School revisits the museum’s previous incarnation at the beginning of the twentieth century as a girls’ school. The title also draws on biographical material, but at the same time, the school metaphor refers to everything unknown, still to be learned, the new.
Peter Zimmermann was born in 1956 in Freiburg and grew up in the Black Forest. After graduating from high school, he left the region in order to study at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, being taught there by K.R.H. Sonderborg, among others. Towards the end of the 1980s, Zimmermann moved to Cologne (his adoptive home to this day), which was a pulsating nexus of art production and theoretical discourse on contemporary art at the time, ultimately taking up a teaching post at the Academy of Media Arts there. Consequently, Zimmermann’s development as an artist didn’t actually take place in Freiburg and environs. His prolific career includes countless international exhibitions at museums and art galleries, his works are held in major collections worldwide. His current exhibition Freiburg School, at Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg, closes on the 19 June 2016.
In the exhibition Freiburg School, Zimmermann has radically transformed the rooms in the museum to create a single integrated, walk-in work in which the floor becomes a canvas, the exhibition venue a colossal spatial frieze. The focal point of the exhibition is the place where two distinct groups of works confront one another: the epoxy works on the floor made especially for the exhibition and a series of more recent oil paintings on the walls, which are being shown in this configuration for the first time. Compositionally, the paintings on the walls were made using a similar manipulation process as the works in epoxy.
Freiburg School revisits the museum’s previous incarnation at the beginning of the twentieth century as a girls’ school. The title also draws on biographical material, but at the same time, the school metaphor refers to everything unknown, still to be learned, the new.
Peter Zimmermann was born in 1956 in Freiburg and grew up in the Black Forest. After graduating from high school, he left the region in order to study at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, being taught there by K.R.H. Sonderborg, among others. Towards the end of the 1980s, Zimmermann moved to Cologne (his adoptive home to this day), which was a pulsating nexus of art production and theoretical discourse on contemporary art at the time, ultimately taking up a teaching post at the Academy of Media Arts there. Consequently, Zimmermann’s development as an artist didn’t actually take place in Freiburg and environs. His prolific career includes countless international exhibitions at museums and art galleries, his works are held in major collections worldwide. His current exhibition Freiburg School, at Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg, closes on the 19 June 2016.
©Christine Litz, Peter Zimmermann, Thorsten Schneider and Bernhard Strauss (photography).
For further information about Peter Zimmermann's work
contact [email protected]
contact [email protected]
Peter Zimmermann
Heu, 2015
Oil on canvas
H3100 mm x W2300 mm
PoR
- Archive
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- September 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- January 2011
- October 2010
- September 2010
- June 2010