Reading
August 15, 2013, 7pm
“I expected your new lover to be a faceless male thing, with no, or only slightly better features than my own. But I realized that Ragnar Pluto was indeed an impressive figure...”
Peter Wächtler narrates a text, with accompanying drawings, that weaves together the story of a failed love affair, a usurper, and a lobster.
Wächtler’s video works, animations and live readings depart from the fanciful visual, gestural and linguistic registers of cinematic and literary fiction, and are suffused with cyclical allegories of failed relationships, careers and dreams. Whether centered on the performances of "actors" or the artist's own voice, these narratives are delivered in a deadpan, stilted tone, and with the disjunctions of a Germanic approach to the English language intact. Often coupled with frenetic hand-drawn illustrations, they function as off-kilter transpositions of constructed affect and earnest over-identification.
Peter Wächtler (born 1979, Hannover) lives and works in Brussels. Recent solo exhibitions include B.A.C.K at Ludlow 38, New York (2013); Studium Maximum at Reisebürogalerie Diko-Reisen, Cologne (2012); Das Kino im Alten Mühlenviertel, Galerie Lars Friedrich, Berlin (2012); and The Set, Etablissement d’en Face, Brussels (2011). Peter Wächtler is a member of Etablissement d’en Face and a co-founder with Hans-Christian Lotz of the exhibition space Sotoso in Brussels.
