Much of Peter Land’s practice deals with the fine line between the real and the surreal, as he examines the realities of the human condition. Using himself as his primary source for research, he often transposes himself into his work, revealing his own vulnerabilities. In this context, the idea of the child as performer can be extended to the idea of the artist himself as a performer.
In a reality where the artist, the artwork, the institution and the spectator are intrinsically linked, the role that the artist plays in relation to the work goes beyond being simply the creator of the work and becomes understood as a kind of figure that can be typecast and expected to fulfill a certain set of expectations. This intimate exposure of Peter Land’s feelings is translated through the work. Highlighting the differences between the public and private self, both in terms of what one might want to alternatively hide or project and what one might expect from others, Land asks the spectator to question their own motives in this paradigm.
Peter Land (b. 1966, Denmark) has exhibited widely at prestigious institutions such as the Hayward Gallery (London), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen) Stadt Remscheid (Remscheid), Kunstpalais Erlangen (Erlangen), GL STRAND (Copenhagen), Salzburg Kunstverein (Salzburg) MAMCO Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (Geneva), and Museum of Modern Art Chicago (Chicago). In 2005, Land was invited to participate in the 51st Venice Biennale as part of the Danish Pavilion. His work can be found in the public collections of ARKEN Museum of Modern Art (Ishøj), ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aarhus), Astrup Fearnley Museet (Oslo), Essl Museum (Klosterneubeurg), FNAC (Paris), HEART Hearing Museum of Contemporary Art (Herning), Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen) among many others.
