Shiny

The trademark of Peter Zimmermann’s paintings are extremely shiny surfaces upon which at times amorphous, at times apparently pixelated, rastered or optically inhomoginated areas of colour glow intensely. The final outcome on the canvas is preceded by a complicated process of computation using found photographs, pushing the banal templates into a kind of neo-abstract as well as surrealist cliché. What is interesting however is the fact that the artist views the pictorial process as an analogue to the abstraction process of the most diverse branches of science. The paintings emerging from his studio nowadays are the result of conscious artistic decision-making.
By contrast, his »artefacts« for the exhibition in 1999 at the Kölnischen Kunstverein were »planned« with no specific outcome in mind. His purpose was to illustrate the »difficulty of decision-making, of chance, of contingency«. Contingency has remained the key term however, out of which the artist can produce unlimited pyrotechnics both for himself and his oftentimes amazing images – chance used consciously a compositional medium or which is actively invoked to realise an ever-expansive form of pictorial abstraction.
»Works since 1987« is the first truly and only retrospective catalogue to showcase Peter Zimmermann’s entire artistic production since the 1980s. It comprehensively documents his book jackets, poster hoardings, box objects, sculptures as well as the broad spectrum of his lacquer paintings. Included just for fun is the fashion line presented by Tara Jarmon in Paris in 2007 which was based on Zimmerman’s paintings (a special show the Punk doyën Malcolm McLaren deigned to honour). So the rule still is: »Contingency is life’s governing principle!«