Peter Panyoczki: Surface and Beneath

Peter Panyoczki is at home on two continents and thus his life is that of a perpetual emigrant – a person permanently on the move, which is also reflected in his work that is permeated by signs of presence during absence. He belongs to the 1980s generation of artists who polemically rejected conceptual art yet did not simply return to figurative art. Instead, they have a conceptual interest in the question of art as a medium: art is perceived as a medium when its visibility is put to the test. His work expresses the paradox of communication that refuses to reveal itself by providing information of what it is made of. It is pleasantly free of morality, while at the same time it does not avoid the tension created by self-irony and a socially reflected “cultural criticism.” This monograph presents his work of the past 13 years, investigating it from various aspects in a series of very different contributions.