Works at : Seoul Art Space_Geumcheon
Stays in : 2013
Website : www.nicolaspelzer.de
Profile
Education
2006 University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany
2011 Diploma with Distinction at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany
Solo exhibitions
2013
IN REAL WORLD, Lounge Project, Artsonje Center, Seoul, South Korea
WAITING WITH THE FRUITS, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl, Germany
2012 PARAMETRIC PLEASURE, The Future Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2011 SITUATION ROOM, Moltkerei Werkstatt e.V., Cologne, Germany
2010 ALLES LAVA, Baustelle Schaustelle, Essen, Germany
2009 NICOLAS PELZER, glasmoog, Cologne, Germany
2008 ISLAND, RAUMKALK, Cologne, Germany
Group exhibitions
2013 MORE OR LESS, WCW Gallery, Hamburg, Germany
2012
PLAYTIME, Culture Station Seoul 284, South Korea
5JAHRE, Baustelle Schaustelle, Essen, Germany
REAL DMZ PROJECT, Cheorwon, curated by SAMUSO, South Korea
NEW TALENTS, Landesvertretung NRW, Berlin, Germany
NEW TALENTS - Biennale Cologne, Cologne, Germany
MONTAGEN, SSZ Sued, Cologne, Germany
SECHS MINUS, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany
EINIGE PARALLELEN, Temporary Gallery, Cologne, Germany
2011
SAMMLUNG IM PROZESS, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl, Germany
TEMPORARY RE-VISIONISTS, Space O’New Wall, Seoul, South Korea
PUBLIC, PRIVATE, CORPORATE, Generali Deutschland, Cologne, Germany
UN PROBLÈME INSOLUBLE, Triangle France, Marseille, France
METROSPECTIVE 1.0, Program e.V., Berlin, Germany
2010
YOU MAY ALL GO TO HELL, AND I WILL GO TO TEXAS, Ryan’s, organized by The Future Gallery, Berlin, Germany
SCHAUFENSTER, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany
IDEENBILDER, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany
JUNGE KUNST IM RUHRGEBIET, Gladbeck, Germany
2009
VOGELSANG INTERVENTION, Vogelsang/Eifel, Germany
JUNGE PROPAGANDA, Plan09, glasmoog, Cologne, Germany
Awards
Exhibition Funding, IFA, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, 2012
Nachwuchsförderung, Kunststiftung NRW, 2011
Exhibition Funding, IFA, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, 2011
DAAD Scholarship, German Academic Exchange Service, 2010
Art Award 2010, Baustelle Schaustelle, Essen, 2010
ANGULATED FOCUS, 2011
glass, panel connector, iPhone, cable
226x140x130cm
Space O'New Wall, Seoul
COLUMNS, 2012
artificial leather, Curtain Rods
292x380x20cm
Temporary Gallery, Cologne, Germany
DISLOCATED CINEMA, 2012
glass surface with an aspect ratio of 16:9, folded
frosted glass, panel connector
220x396x2cm, variable size
Cheorwon Peace Observatory
REAL DMZ PROJECT 2012, Cheorwon, South Korea
curated by samuso: space for contemporary art
NEGATIVE EXPOSURE, 2011
7 glass panes with an aspect ratio of 16:9
185x100x2cm
Generali Deutschland, Cologne, Germany
SETTINGS FOR A FAST POSTURE, 2012
Pop-Up-Display, cotton, tie-dye
215x265x50cm
Nicolas Pelzer
Nicolas Pelzer is interested in dealing with the physical presence and materiality of the actual space. Considering the growing influence of new media especially in the online world, which changes the value in the real world, his installations attempt to reach existing locations and to intervene in their original architecture and historical context.
Metaphors of Reality Created through Objects
Seo Juno (Director, Space O’NewWall)
Nicolas Peltzer has worked with an interest in Korea's reality since 2010. He focused on capturing the somewhat offsetting circumstances of Korea in comparison of its special situation of division to that formerly of Germany's. For example, after having toured the reunification observatories dotting the landscape by the Demilitarized Zone, Peltzer has published a booklet, etc. (Dislocated North Korea, Nicolas Pelzer, 2011, artist publication) containing the ironic situation of an overlapping of the tragedy of those who have lost their hometowns, threatening images of ‘the enemy’ of North Korea and aspects of how they are being received, and commercial utilization as a ‘security tourism destination’.
At the exhibition Temporary Re-visionists at Space O'NewWall in Seoul in 2011, Nicholas Peltzer exhibited video work played through the iPhone, <Angulated Focus>, created from glass panels, the book <Glass Line> created in 2010 and the piece <The Cabinet>, an image created from glass panel connectors. At Space O'NewWall, where the facade consists of a single glass panel, Nicholas Peltzer has cut into five pieces a sheet of glass identical in size to the gallery's glass panel, and connected and arranged the connectors in a form reminiscent of the Big Dipper. He made a work of video created through sketch-up between the glass panels and the gallery's glass facade faces his glass piece so that it could not be seen from outside the gallery, and the sloped and angular glass panels conveying a sense of peril reveal the artist's views regarding ‘security tourism sites.’
The reunification observatories, nonexistent in Germany although they were also once divided, were an object of strong interest for the artist. The observatories consist of observation platforms offering views of North Korean territory beyond the Demilitarized Zone and exhibition spaces exhibiting images of North Korea and those related to the division. It appears the artist has interpreted the glass installed on building facades to allow extensive views into the North Korean border areas as North Korea itself being showcased as an exhibit. Thus the artist comes to view Korea's situation of division being held in a double glass show case. A show case which appears to reveal a reality beyond military borders, using another ‘boundary’ in glass, but in fact is filled with manufactured and planned images. This is likely the precise reason the artist has formalized reunification observatories through glass panel structures connected using connectors.
Nicholas Peltzer has represented the structure and situation itself of reunification observatories in the exhibition Temporary Revisionists and has exhibited something of a similar form at the Peace Observatory in Cheorwon in 2012. However, the 2012 Cheorwon Peace Observatory work, in contrast to the piece in Seoul, was an installation disturbing the view the reunification observatory consisted of by erecting interconnected non-transparent glass panels in front of the glass of the observation platform from which to view North Korea. He satirized the structure of the reunification observatory, which asks people to imagine the whole through a part of North Korea seen beyond the glass by focusing attention on the results of curiosity and imagination regarding North Korea itself. Then, by capturing what was represented in the show case of an exhibition space the artist exhibits the structure itself of the traffic of gazes. The intentions behind viewing images thought to be what North Korea looks like only through glass panels leads one to think about the structure of gazes, and distinguishes between the layers of the gaze. In such way the artist reveals the method in reunification observatories or the lines of sight through which North and South view each other through a layering of the gaze. What the artist reveals beyond the glass panel may perhaps ultimately be the appearance of a realist striving to approach a multi-layered reality.
