VIENNA.- In the mid-1990s the German artist Peter Piller worked at a Hamburg press clipping service during his art studies. The service was used by regional advertising clients and companies to monitor where and how their paid advertisements appeared in print. Like Richard Prince during his job at Time Life Company (which provided the source of inspiration for his now world-famous Cowboys series), Peter Piller was drawn to specific photographs while paging through the press, which he then set aside and organized into categories, such as „Auto Berühren“ (Touching Car), „Noch ist nichts zu sehen“ (Nothing Yet to Be Seen), „Bauerwartungsflächen“ (Future Building Sites), and „Schießende Mädchen“ (Girls Shooting). Over the years he compiled these images into his Peter Piller Archive, now comprising over 7,000 images, which the artist continues to explore by sorting and arranging the images into different series. With the exhibition „Belegkontrolle“ (Document Control) the Kunst Haus Wien offers insights into this extensive archive.

In Piller’s work the relationship between image and text is an important criteria for selection. Although others might not see anything particular, the artist has developed a delicate sensibility of the eye that allows him to discern the hidden qualities of photographs taken for ordinary purposes. Arranged in groups and coded by titles, the found or assembled visual material is thus placed in different contexts; thus Piller also transfers the images into a different artistic order. For example, “Von Erde schöner“ (More Beautiful from Earth) is a large installation of countless images from an archive of aerial photographs of private homes taken in the 1980s. „Nimmt Schaden“ (Takes Damage) stems from the digital photo archive of a Swiss insurance company and is a quiet ode to the unknown photographer.

With his series „Erscheinungen“ we get to know Peter Piller as a photographer. As with his series „Bereitschaftsgrad“ and „Umschläge“ – works based on magazines from the 1960s to the 1980s – he removed any text material from the pictures; it is entirely the graphic and photographic elements that convey information. „Nachkriegsordnung“, a composition of 35 photographs of one and the same motif – an explosion following a bombing in Baghdad in 2003 – taken from 35 German newspapers and detatched from any context is the artist’s pointed statement on the political weight of photographs.

Here and there the artist takes a look at everyday life, thus providing our mundane actions and rituals with room – sometimes cheerful, sometimes serious – for new insights. His compositions and analyses allow to critically question photographic representation and its reception.

Peter Piller, born in 1968, lives in Hamburg. Since 2006 he has been professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. Anita Witek, born in 1970, lives in Vienna.
"Albedo", the accompanying publication to the exhibition and first book containing texts on Peter Piller, was published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König and is available in the shop.

Peter Piller – Belegkontrolle (Document Control) is an exhibition of KUNST HAUS WIEN in cooperation with Fotomuseum Winterthur, Städtische Galerie Nordhorn and Kunsthalle Nürnberg.