Peter Piller is a contemporary German artist. In addition to his own drawings and photographs, his archive Peter Piller, whose pictures he assembles in thematic series, is particularly characteristic of his artistic work.
The artist lived in Fritzlar, Kassel, Idar-Oberstein and Würzburg, since 1990 in Hamburg. He first studied geography, German language and literature and art education before enrolling at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts in 1993 for the subject "Free Art", where he received his diploma in 2000. In 2005 Peter Piller had a guest professorship at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts. From 2006 to 2018 he was professor of photography in the field of contemporary art at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. Since October 2018 he has been head of the Free Art class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.
Peter Piller creates photo archives and sorts them according to design elements and content-related similarities. His archive is based on a collection of about 6000 newspaper photos. In 2002 he received 12,000 photographs from an aerial photo archive. They were produced by a company in the 1970s to be sold at the front door to the owners of the residential properties pictured. The collections are supplemented by historical postcards, newspaper pictures, library and internet finds. He also undertakes migrations from cities such as Hamburg, Graz, Barcelona and through the Ruhr area. In this context, drawings, texts and photographic works are created. Several thematic compilations were created from the archives. The picture series have short, concise titles such as "Sleeping Houses" or "Shooting Girls". The series were exhibited several times and subsequently published in illustrated books.
Peter Piller is currently working on stone-age cave drawings, which have been documented and archived in numerous scientific publications. By reproducing and enlarging the historical pictorial documentation, he focuses, among other things, on the so-called "indeterminate lines" of these drawings, which are removed from their cultural context and thus from an unambiguous readability. An open system of signs becomes visible without being able to decipher it. A visual space is created in which the ambiguous creates an echo in the viewer. Piller also combines photos of cave paintings with finds from other scientific disciplines.
"in dealing with photographic finds of all kinds, i have trained myself to be as patient as possible. it is essential to distrust the first glance. it is sufficient to have a vague feeling of the kind of "there could be something there". that's worth much more than a stack of pictures after the first sighting or even an idea for a way of dealing with it. just as every word is surrounded by thousands of associated words, so it is with the pictures, only much stronger. so it is imperative to return, and if possible always as another one." peter piller, "after resolution of local early morning fog", 2017.
The event will take place on Monday, December 9, 2019 at 17:00 in the assembly hall of the Campus Idar-Oberstein, Vollmersbachstraße 53a, 55743 Idar-Oberstein.
Guests are welcome. The participation is free of charge.
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