Crackers

A free-spirited voyage to the outer edges of professional exhibition-making and beyond.

Peter Wächtler’s third publication with Sternberg Press collects texts and images produced during the preparation of his 2024 show Crackers at the independent exhibition space Simian in Copenhagen, Denmark, and in its aftermath. This eponymous publication brings together an extended version of the exhibition text, pieces performed at readings, and scripts that were intended to provide the basis for a video work but never developed as such, along with new drawings and installation views. Exploring the narrative potential of broken sculptures for still life paintings, or of a barista’s working day for a dragonheavy draft of fantasy, the texts give a keyed-up voice to an aging hipster-self, realizing that other forces grew in the dark while they were busy hurting, healing, and climbing. The material shares a fumbling approach to fiction and non-fiction, presenting an honest but humorous portrayal of the tension between the outside world and the inner life of a person and an artist in particular. 

Copublished by Simian.Peter Wächtler (b. 1979, Hannover, Germany) lives and works between Berlin and Copenhagen. Recent solo exhibitions include Le Consortium, Dijon; Simian, Copenhagen; Culturgest, Lisbon; dépendance, Brussels; Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York; The Power Station, Dallas; Kunsthalle Zürich; Bergen Kunsthall; Foundation Antonio Dalle Nogare, Bolzano; and Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. He has published several books, among them Jolly Rogers (2019), Come On (2013), and The Set (2012). Since 2025, Wächtler has been a professor for Painting and Pictorial Practices at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen.