Peter Weber is known for his complex foldings. After an initial phase as a constructive painter, during which he was also a lecturer and musician, folding has been his sole means of artistic expression and design for around thirty years. He has now created around 1800 geometric folded structures: at first using paper and canvas, then also in materials such as watercolour board, plastic and steel. But it is above all his foldings in felt, which he has been creating since 2001, that have become Peter Weber's trademark. With them he occupies a unique position in the concrete art scene and has made a name for himself well beyond it.
Peter Weber's foldings are the result of a work procedure that developed by a mixture of experiment a marvellous gift of imagination. They are based on precisely calculated constructions, which the artist first tries out as paper models before executing them in the desired material. Through the process of folding, the flat surface of the chosen material is transformed -- in the truest sense -- into a multi-layered structure. This is done on principle without cutting through the material, which is always kept in one whole piece. In this way, visual objects are created that fascinate not only in a sensual, aesthetic way, but also because their genesis seems so mysterious to the viewer rapt in wonder.
The exhibition illuminates the diversity of Peter Weber's impressive foldings, and presents not only single folded works but also multi-part folding cycles and steel sculptures and reliefs that show "open folded states". In addition, the exhibition presents the artist's lesser-known early work, which he developed following his student days around 1970 in the tradition of Op Art and Kinetics. On view are experimental reliefs as well as flickering pictorial objects involving rippled glass, and painted interferences that create spatial illusions on the basis of a programmed design using overlapping linear grids. All in all, the show gives an excellent overview of Peter Weber's wide-ranging oeuvre, which embraces groups of works in various media and techniques.
Biography
| 1944 born in Kollmar, Elbe |
| 1963–65 apprenticeship as typesetter in Hamburg |
| 1969–73 studies at the Fachhochschule Hamburg, Department of Art and Design under Max H. Mahlmann; diploma in graphic design |
| 1969–1991 relief pictures, objects and paintings |
| 1969–2005 double-bass player in various jazz groups from Hamburg |
| 1974 first foldings with paper |
| 1979–1989 lectureship at the Fachhochschule Hamburg, Department of Art and Design |
| 1990 first foldings in canvas, development of folding techniques and folding systems |
| 2001 first foldings in felt |
| 2017 first works with open folding states |
| The artist lives and works near Munich and in Vignale Monferrato (IT). |