01

the moment the cow gets bored, she takes to the ice – a simple, easy-to-understand image for the moment when a risk is taken that one knows could fail. if the cow succumbs to the treacherous lure of the ice in dubious overconfidence, her fateful show run ends in the butcher’s cold store. beginning with her tragic fall, the clumsy bovine now undergoes an artisanal process until it is finally offered for consumption in a multiply processed variation in appropriately illuminated display cases. different phases of this process have been incorporated into the artistic visions of various artists. starting with the decaying flesh obsessions of chaim soutine, through the segmentation of the animal in the case of damien hirst, to the sausage lover dieter roth, the transformation of the dead body is the subject.

02

in his work ‚180°‘, created in 2015, peter pumpler densely loads a painting surface with paint in order to rub this material firmly onto a wall instead of presenting it dried and artistically appealing in a regular art context. the canvas, which also sticks there due to its adhesive force, illustrates the process. we witness a sacrifice. pumpler is by no means the first artist to dissect seemingly fixed concepts with a sharp knife. with this work, however, he succeeds with ease in creating an intersection of the most diverse and actually incompatible art styles. here, performace and concept art are touched, as well as abstraction and realism in equal measure, not to mention surrealism and dada. together, these lie unwillingly, broken up into small, manageable morsels, as a cadaverous feast of bourgeois amusement.

03

interestingly, in the history of animal sacrifice, there is a shift from a meal that followed the sacrifice of the best to be offered, to a sacrifice for the very purpose of a feast. the gluttonous germanic and greek, smacking the mouth-watering horse or bull meat, were thwarted by christianity with meat taboos. amusingly enough, camels escaped hearty consumption due to a biblical ban only for economic reasons. meat, bacon or sausage became the responsibility of the expert craftsman. the act of separation into the parts to be utilized is reflected in the slaughter.

04

to imagine pumpler’s everyday work life armed with a leather apron and chain gloves misses the analogy that suggests itself. in the rich evidence room of music, his genre is punk. by separating the classical elements of a painting on canvas into their constituent parts, he not only illuminates the anatomy of the work but also its production. following the footsteps of his teacher john armleder, pumpler counters the assertion that a found object can also be elevated to the status of an art object by staging it in pieces. the originally invisible construction of the frame appears, broken and compressed in itself, as a now recognizable element of the presented work itself. in a larger work cycle, the artist completely omits the supporting base of his works in order to reshape the pure, now stationary materiality of his paint into sculptural forms in the midst of its drying process.

05

for the veritable friends of an proliferating indecisiveness, peter pumpler is ecstasising mana. his work is ambiguous and can be read in two diametrically different ways from the perspective of a construction-destruction-osmosis. on the one hand, the reduction of an ice-skating cow to a sausage is not a new creation in the true sense of the word. in the unfolding, the inversion of the work, however, new components of an alternative way of looking at things certainly emerge. in this fascinating field of tension of perplexity, the artist’s works sometimes appear as sad objects removed from the main role – as sacrificial offerings for the good of a higher order that questions beauty.

06

in the mid-seventies, sid vicious‘ scandalous t-shirt mocking the queen was a symbol for denouncing existing, entrenched values and their representation. in a current group exhibition, pumpler places his work ‚ghost II‘ on the floor right next to the entrance door. there, as if ready for collection and disposal, the self-evidence of its inner questioning also coagulates into a threat to the other works presented. the butcher, the sacrificed meat are by no means the artist’s daydreams. the butcher does not slaughter himself – so does the punk. peter pumpler speaks of dismemberment, demonstrating this repetitively with bravery.

martin eugen raabenstein, 2023

more at peterpumpler.de

peter pumpler

01

the moment the cow gets bored, she takes to the ice – a simple, easy-to-understand image for the moment when a risk is taken that one knows could fail. if the cow succumbs to the treacherous lure of the ice in dubious overconfidence, her fateful show run ends in the butcher’s cold store. beginning with her tragic fall, the clumsy bovine now undergoes an artisanal process until it is finally offered for consumption in a multiply processed variation in appropriately illuminated display cases. different phases of this process have been incorporated into the artistic visions of various artists. starting with the decaying flesh obsessions of chaim soutine, through the segmentation of the animal in the case of damien hirst, to the sausage lover dieter roth, the transformation of the dead body is the subject.

02

in his work ‚180°‘, created in 2015, peter pumpler densely loads a painting surface with paint in order to rub this material firmly onto a wall instead of presenting it dried and artistically appealing in a regular art context. the canvas, which also sticks there due to its adhesive force, illustrates the process. we witness a sacrifice. pumpler is by no means the first artist to dissect seemingly fixed concepts with a sharp knife. with this work, however, he succeeds with ease in creating an intersection of the most diverse and actually incompatible art styles. here, performace and concept art are touched, as well as abstraction and realism in equal measure, not to mention surrealism and dada. together, these lie unwillingly, broken up into small, manageable morsels, as a cadaverous feast of bourgeois amusement.

03

interestingly, in the history of animal sacrifice, there is a shift from a meal that followed the sacrifice of the best to be offered, to a sacrifice for the very purpose of a feast. the gluttonous germanic and greek, smacking the mouth-watering horse or bull meat, were thwarted by christianity with meat taboos. amusingly enough, camels escaped hearty consumption due to a biblical ban only for economic reasons. meat, bacon or sausage became the responsibility of the expert craftsman. the act of separation into the parts to be utilized is reflected in the slaughter.

04

to imagine pumpler’s everyday work life armed with a leather apron and chain gloves misses the analogy that suggests itself. in the rich evidence room of music, his genre is punk. by separating the classical elements of a painting on canvas into their constituent parts, he not only illuminates the anatomy of the work but also its production. following the footsteps of his teacher john armleder, pumpler counters the assertion that a found object can also be elevated to the status of an art object by staging it in pieces. the originally invisible construction of the frame appears, broken and compressed in itself, as a now recognizable element of the presented work itself. in a larger work cycle, the artist completely omits the supporting base of his works in order to reshape the pure, now stationary materiality of his paint into sculptural forms in the midst of its drying process.

05

for the veritable friends of an proliferating indecisiveness, peter pumpler is ecstasising mana. his work is ambiguous and can be read in two diametrically different ways from the perspective of a construction-destruction-osmosis. on the one hand, the reduction of an ice-skating cow to a sausage is not a new creation in the true sense of the word. in the unfolding, the inversion of the work, however, new components of an alternative way of looking at things certainly emerge. in this fascinating field of tension of perplexity, the artist’s works sometimes appear as sad objects removed from the main role – as sacrificial offerings for the good of a higher order that questions beauty.

06

in the mid-seventies, sid vicious‘ scandalous t-shirt mocking the queen was a symbol for denouncing existing, entrenched values and their representation. in a current group exhibition, pumpler places his work ‚ghost II‘ on the floor right next to the entrance door. there, as if ready for collection and disposal, the self-evidence of its inner questioning also coagulates into a threat to the other works presented. the butcher, the sacrificed meat are by no means the artist’s daydreams. the butcher does not slaughter himself – so does the punk. peter pumpler speaks of dismemberment, demonstrating this repetitively with bravery.

martin eugen raabenstein, 2023

more at peterpumpler.de