Collateral, 2016

Oil and wax on multiplex

66 x 115 cm

Istanbul Museum of Modern Art Collection

Three, Two, One..., 2013

Oil and wax on multiplex

47 x 90 cm

Istanbul Museum of Modern Art Collection

In the way he builds his paintings, Peter Anders draws attention to three-dimensionality and spatial depth. He frequently decorates the works with oils and waxes in a manner reminiscent of nineteenth-century oil painting, which begins with lighter colors and continues with darker layers. In the “Room Paintings” (Kammerbilder) series, his intent is to portray burning mosques, houses attacked by neo-Nazis, and looted museums before the destruction is lost in the annals of history. He visualizes the consequences of carnage and damage.

“Collateral” refers to a tragic event that took place in Cairo in 2004 as Anders saw it in a newspaper photograph. The painting depicts one of the galleries in Egypt’s Museum of Islamic Art, which sustained considerable damage from a car bomb attack targeting Cairo police headquarters on the other side of the street. He memorializes the attack, which damaged and destroyed important artifacts from the museum collection in the way he saw it in a newspaper photograph. “Three, Two, One...” shows one of the salons of the Malawi Museum in Egypt, which was significantly damaged after a looting in 2013. Anders illustrates how museums containing social memory are harmed by deadly attacks as if through a misty window.