Artist: Peter Buggenhout

Extended opening hours to coincide with Frieze week:
Monday - Saturday 11am-6pm
&
West End Gallery Night
Thursday 10 October, 6pm-8pm

“Telluric, tumorous, organic, lunar and magmatic in appearance and inclined to host many more adjectives yet without accepting any of them, the works of Peter Buggenhout do not objectively resemble anything, nor do they relate anything at all. They are and it is based on this very existence – deprived of quality and utility, disturbing through its lack of differentiation – that they fully participate in reality, to become the imprint of past, present, and probably future events without respecting either meaning or order of appearance. At heart, this is perhaps what the work as a whole brings up to date, both in the contraction and the explosion of matter: a pure space that Rilke calls ‘the Open’ – das Offene – that suspends the chronological and linear time of narration in order to liberate the undifferentiated and unlimited time of the abyss.”

From Ansen Selen: Down Side Up - published in No Shade in Paradise: Peter Buggenhout, exhibition catalogue, Neues Museum, Nürnberg, 2017, p. 232

Holtermann Fine Art presents works by Peter Buggenhout in the artist’s second exhibition at the gallery.

Buggenhout’s unique and compelling oeuvre consists of autonomous, seemingly disparate groups of sculptural objects. Resisting interpretation and devoid of symbols, the works engage the viewer in a dialogue on our inability to comprehend the complexity of the world. Speaking strong individual languages there are visual traces of Robert Rauschenberg’s Combines, Arte Povera’s use of found material and the industrial detritus application by artists like John Chamberlain in works that defy easy interpretation yet draws the viewer into their individual cosmos.

On view will be the latest work from The Blind leading the Blind group; works from Buggenhout’s new King Louie series, a large wall-bound sculpture from On Hold as well as works from the Mont Ventoux and Mute Witness groups.

Peter Buggenhout (b. 1963, Dendermonde, Belgium) lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. He studied Monumental Arts at Sint-Lucas School of Art, Ghent.

Buggenhout’s work is included in the current Gwangju Biennale, Pensori, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud (co-founder and former director of Palais de Tokyo, Paris and Curator for Contemporary Art at Tate Britain) till Dec 1, 2024. Second Site, a solo exhibition at Kunstmuseum Den Haag is on view till Nov 24, 2024. In 2025 a major exhibition will open at Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden, Wuppertal, Germany.

Buggenhout’s work has been exhibited at Kunstmuseum Reutlingen, Reutlingen (2021); W.I.E.L.S., Brussels (2020); Neues Museum Nurnberg, Nurnberg (2017); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2017); M Museum, Leuven (2015); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2014); MoMA/PS1, New York (2013); Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2012-2013); De Pont Museum, Tilburg (2011) and La Maison Rouge - Fondation Antoine De Galbert, Paris (2010).

The work can be found in the collections of MoMA/PS1, New York; Neues Museum Nürnberg, Nürnberg; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Banhof, Berlin; La Maison Rouge – Fondation Antoine De Galbert, Paris; David Roberts Foundation, London; Rubell Family Collection, Washington/Miami; Margulis Collection, Florida; Christen Sveaas Art Collection, Oslo.

Comprehensive monographs include the catalogue raisonné: No Shade in Paradise, Peter Buggenhout published by Neues Museum, Nürnberg, 2017; Peter Buggenhout, Erotism published by Konrad Fischer Galerie, 2023.