HARTMUT PINIEK  

current:    

Hartmut Piniek – painting //
Gerenot Richter – graphics, drawing

akanthus galerie | Westwerk Leipzig
Karl-Heine-Straße 98, 04229 Leipzig

exhibition in room 2 (new building)
September 26 to November 22, 2025
exhibition opening:
September 26, 2025 at 7:00 PM  

akanthus-galerie.de

Dr. Hans Zitko

Landscapes of endangered existence

- About the works of Hartmut Piniek -


Landscape is the predominant subject of Hartmut Piniek’s paintings and graphic artworks. Even where the painter primarily focuses on pictorial means and painting technique you can still notice a reference to presentational painting.
Two geographic regions are of essential importance for his creative mind: On the one hand this is the coastal landscape of the Baltic Sea where the artist spent his childhood and on the other hand it is the extensive opencast coal mines around Leipzig being a suggestive as well as a bleak area resulting from the massive impact of human civilization on nature. The pictures are a response to the topographic situation he experienced; they show monumental formations and evoke the impression of spaciousness, although they in most cases refuse the view of a horizon and the sky. The pictured landscapes are presented in an oblique top view. Vast plains, deep hollows or slopes dominate the space of the picture - all as seen from above.

The genesis of his works is linked to these subjects. However, they are far from being realistic depictions of topographic conditions. Piniek translates the shapes of artificial landscapes created by open-pit mining into an imaginary world with its own connotations. He uses the means of painting to generate a subjectively tuned visual sphere reflecting emotional impulses and existential themes related to both individual and collective history. The outside world which is adopted in the process of painting mirrors an inner world that demands expression. An oppressive emptiness of space along with the loss of an inner relation between objects is striking in several compositions and creates an atmosphere of confusion and insecurity. This affects the tiny-looking figures that seem to be lost in the endlessly extending territory. Exposed to the vastness of space without any protection they are moving between remnants of civilisation like vehicle parts, technical devices and other objects whose former function can no longer be identified.



/ Ausschnitt      Wasserstück   1988 

With his method of transferring observed phenomena into imaginary realities Piniek takes up the forms of classic surrealism. The works of Tanguy, Dali or Chirico are inspiring for an art that impressively captures phenomena of alienation and isolation with similar means. Occasionally, the confusing atmosphere of the scenes intensifies the acute threat for the scattered protagonists. Above all, it is the use of black shapes in the otherwise luminous compositions that creates an aggressive tension paralysingly depressing the scene. Piniek reveals the view of a world which has fallen apart and takes on eschatological features at times.

However, this sceptical view of the situation of mankind is only one side of an artistic sensitivity that recognizes the corrective of negative conditions. The more or less painterly dissolved objects, appearing in irregular order in the space of the paintings, keep gaining mobility and weightlessness in contrast to the darkening mood of the scene. On the one hand, the depletion of space is the expression of decomposing major contexts which once stabilised life. On the other hand it opens up a wide field of experience where creative imagination can resettle. The panoramas of denatured landscapes turn underhandedly into poetic fields that seem to dissipate melancholy and offer reconciliation. Especially some works on paper present themselves almost cheerful and relaxed. Quite often, these two moments – the alienation of the world and its poetic overcoming – can be found close to each other in a single work. Piniek’s artistic means are wandering between these two extremes following the one side to support the other.

The depiction of light plays an important role in pushing back the phenomena of estrangement. Usually flowing into the scene from top left it acts as an active means of dissolving boundaries and opening the depicted landscape to space. This is where the black shapes irritating the scenes have their strongest opponent. The painter, who sees himself as an inheritor of Romanticism, understands light as a life-giving concept, above all, as a reflection of transcendency that the defeated world can share and that justifies that hope trying to escape from the threat of a darkening life. In this sense, the postmodern cynicism, which describes decay but denies escape, seems strange to the artist.
Translation: Silke Christoph      


/ Ausschnitt      Ufer am Morgen   2000 

/ Ausschnitt      518   2007 



Hartmut Piniek  lives in the southern region of Leipzig where walks can suddenly end up at the rim of an earthly hereafter. The edge of the mine precipitously separates the gentle, green rolling hills from infernal deserts that lignite mining has dug into the country. The view down the pits is fascinating, ghastly, marvellous, gloomy – like looking at creation and eschaton at the same time. It is a landscape full of visions.

Piniek is a visionary. His paintings show a strong affinity for the conditions in the no-man’s-land of abandoned mines now being transformed into recreational areas. But it is not that he depicts what everybody can see and touch. Piniek interprets his self against the background of a devastated landscape that offers a world of options from paradise to hell.

In his early, autodidactic years Piniek was a surrealist. Later, his studies at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts, which he began only at the age of 29, led him to explore the tangible world. Thus, he places more emphasis on the human figure in his solid and expressive compositions. Already during his academic years his paintings indicate a changing point of view. Piniek moves upward from eye level to a bird’s-eye view which is distinctive for his current works. However, this vast overview also means a loss of closeness and immediate contact. The figures become smaller, the structure of the surroundings dissolve and the brush stroke becomes softer. This process of receding from the real world presumably enables the artist to experience himself. Creating the world by painting first of all means an elimination of interfering accessories. Loudspeakers, power poles and wires, that used to help locate his inner world, have almost disappeared. What remains are sundry set pieces floating in an uncertain distance above the ground and icon-like brush strokes being single figures walking their way through a revised landscape. Sometimes a rope dangles into the scene like from a lost balloon and marks the elevated point of view. Eternal floating, plunging and rising – anything is possible now. We cannot tell yet whether there is danger. After all, it is still.

It is a moment of silence after an unknown catastrophe and before the uncertain, following disaster. All burden of culture has gone, the survivors are on their own as nomads now and might dare a new beginning on the ruins of their existence. This projection of eschaton means liberation to Piniek. It reflects both, a pleasure in doom and a hope for new opportunities, for an end of all entanglement, for the Gordian solution. The contrast of a changing painterly style with cloudy spaces as well as powerful brush strokes and the contrast of colours with airy pastels on the one hand and heavy black on the other hand keeps the atmosphere in an ambivalent state. The almost obsessive repetition of one and the same subject in constant variations implies how much this tabula rasa vision has seized Piniek.

The floating pictorial world of Hartmut Piniek allows connotations especially because of its sensitive free artistic style.. His artistic position cultivates an opulent minimalism at the borderline between abstraction and representationalism. However, Piniek never crosses the border to self-sufficient pure peinture. Like hanging by a thread he cleaves to the realistic tradition that insists on secularity. Also in recourse to surrealist creation myths Piniek proves to be a romanticist. – a Wanderer above the Sea of Fog of dispersed fears and dreams of the 20th century.


Tim Sommer - from: Catalogue Hartmut Piniek 2000        
Translation: Silke Christoph           

Biography

1950	born in Wolgast
1979-84	studied painting and graphic arts at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig with Prof. Arno Rink
1984-87	master-class student with Prof. Bernhard Heisig
1992-98	lecturer of painting at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig
	lives and works in Oelzschau near Leipzig

Solo exhibtions

2024	IN DER SCHWEBE - Malerei von Hartmut Piniek, Mühlengalerie Dölitzer Wassermühle
2022	Hartmut Piniek - Romantik unter Druck, Museum Rungehaus, Wolgast
2017/18	Hartmut Piniek, Seecon, Baumwollspinnerei Leipzig
2017/18	Malerei + Grafik, Kunst im Klinkhardt-Bau, Wurzen
2015/16	LAND VIEWS, Vattenfall AG Cottbus
2014	Hartmut Piniek - Painting, Art Society Husum
2013	Painting HP – Constellations, Art Gallery Müller, Wurzbach
	New Land, online exhibtion german-fine-arts, Berlin
2012	Water-Land-Formations, Gallery Frenhofer, Berlin
2011	Eschaton: Water Land Air, Art Society Leimen
2010	Gallery Wallstraßengalerie, Mönchengladbach
2009	Landsearch, Gallery Hoch + Partner, Leipzig
	Reading Room at the BstU, Leipzig
2007	Wisentahalle, Schleiz
	one man show, CologneFineArt, Cologne
	Art Gallery Müller, Wurzbach
2006	Gallery Galerie Kamp, Sylt
	Gallery Wallstraßengalerie, Mönchengladbach
2005	Maxim-Gorki-Museum, Heringsdorf
	Gallery Greifengalerie, Greifswald
2004	Gallery Galeriehotel Leipziger Hof
2003	Museum Neue Sächsische Galerie, Chemnitz
2000	Municipal Museum Wolgast
1998	Gallery Graphikangebot Müller, Großpösna
1993	Federal Bank of Saxony, Leipzig
1992	Gallery Schwind, Frankfurt am Main
1989	Gallery Eigen+Art, Leipzig
1987	Gallery at Thomaskirchhof, Leipzig

Group exhibitions (selection)

2024	"Claim 34 - Positions of East German Painters" Villa Bergstraße 50, Rodenbach/Oberrodenbach
2023	"Hochdruck Now" Kunstmuseum Reutlingen
2023	"Claim 33 - Positions of East German Painters" Villa Bergstraße 50, Rodenbach/Oberrodenbach
2021	"Claim 31 - Positions of East German Painters" Exhibition on the occasion of 31 years of "German Unity" Villa Bergstraße 50, Rodenbach/Oberrodenbach
2021	"Wanted: Woodcuts" The new woodcuts for the collection Kunstmuseum Reutlingen
2019	"!" Leipzig annual exhibition Exhibition hall of the Leipzig Cotton Spinning Mill
2018/19	"PARADOX" 35. Leipziger graphic exchange Leipzig, Schloss Burgk, Bad Elster, Chemnitz, Dessau, Kressbronn
2014	"Art.School.Leipzig - Painting and Graphic after 1947" Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig
2013	"trilogie 14: Mit dem Sonnenwind" Kunsthalle Wittenhagen
2011	Graphic Art Print Event 3 - Hochdruck Leipzig
	"Aerial Print" 31. Leipzig Graphic Art Exchange, Art Society Coburg, Saxon Landtag Dresden
	"Saxonia Paper - Drawing in Saxony" Art and Exhibition Hall of the Sparkasse Leipzig
2010	"The Seventeenth" Leipzig annual exhibition
	"Bilder Bühnen" Gallery Kunstarchiv Beeskow
2009	"60/40/20 - Art in Leipzig since 1949" Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig
	"Turning Moment" Gallery Hoch + Partner Leipzig
2008	"XYLON - Triennale internationale de l`impression artistique en relief", Fernet Branca Contamporary Art Museum Saint-Louis, France
	"Wood Cut Today" Kreissparkasse Ludwigsburg
2007	"Austel 31" Art and Exhibition Hall of the Sparkasse Leipzig
	"100 Saxon Grahic Art Works" Saxon Landtag, Dresden
2006	"Glimpse of the Collection/7" Art and Exhibition Hall of the Sparkasse Leipzig
	"100 Saxon Grahic Art Works" Museum Neue sächsische Galerie Chemnitz
2005	"Glimpse of the Collection/6" Art and Exhibition Hall of the Sparkasse Leipzig
	"Gellert-Award" Grimma
	"Great Saxon Art Exhibition" Leipzig
	"10 Years of Leipziger Schule" Gallery Galeriehotel Leipziger Hof
2004	"100 Saxon Grahic Art Works" wood cuts, Museum Neue Sächsische Galerie Chemnitz
2003	"Patterns of Being - Miniatures" Gallery Samtleben, Potsdam
2001	Selected Exhibition 4. Lucas-Cranach-Award of Kronach, Fortress Rosenberg
	Selected Exhibition "Lino cut today V" Graphic award of Bietigheim-Bissingen
1999	"8th Art Market. 20th Century Art on Paper", Residenzschloss Dresden
1998	"Drawings. Exhibition of Lecturers", Gallery at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
1997	"Pleasure and Pain. Leipzig Art since 1945", Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig, Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig; Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
1995	"art multiple", Düsseldorf, Gallery Graphikangebot Müller
	"Mission Art 1949–1990. Fine Art in East Germany between Aesthetics and Politics", Museum of German History, Berlin
1993	"Europaprijs voor Schilderkunst 93. Prix Europe de Peinture – EuropaPrice für Malerei – Prize for Painting", Stedelijk Museum Oostende (Belgium)
1992	"Acquisitions since 1945“, Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig
1991	"Grafik fra Ost-Tyskland", Kunstforening Farsund; Kunstforening Mandal; Kunstforening Stavangar; Kunstforening Venesla (Norway)
	"Artists at the Spiegel Publishing House. G. Huniat, I. Kiele, H. Piniek", Leipzig
1990	"Intergrafik 90", Exhibition Centre at the TV Tower, Berlin
	"Leipzig Painters. Photographs B. Schurian, Drawings of Artists", Gasteig, Galerie Alvensleben, Munich; Goethe-Institut, Brussels (Belgium)
	"Leipzig School. Basic Studies, Painting/Graphic Arts/Photography", Karl-Hofer-Society, Berlin
	"Leipzig School 1945–1990. Painting/Graphic Arts/Photography, Lecturers and Graduates of the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig", Berlin State Art Gallery; Oberhausen Castle Municiple Gallery, Ludwig-Institute for East German Art; Art Society Hannover
	"Tradition und Innovation. Young Artists of East Germany", Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen; Hamburg Art and Exhibition Hall
1987	"Students’ Works - Painting and Graphic Art 1987/88", Hochhaus at the Central Station, Duisburg
	"X. Art Exhibition of East Germany. Dresden 1987/88", Albertinum Brühlsche Terasse, Dresden

Collections

Kunsthalle Bremen, Kupferstichkabinett Dresden, Schlossmuseum Meinigen, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Lindenau Museum Altenburg, Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum der Deutschen Bücherei Leipzig, Sorbisches Museum Bautzen, Kunstarchiv Beeskow,
Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, Commerzbank, Kunsthalle der Sparkasse Leipzig, Landesbank Sachsen, Landeszentralbank für die Freistaaten Sachsen und Thüringen, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Wertpapiersparen, Vattenfall AG

Publications (selection)

2015	LAND VIEWS, TV report at the opening, Vattenfall AG
2015	Hartmut Piniek LAND VIEWS, catalog ed. by Vattenfall AG
2004	Die Leipziger Schule - blick in die sammlung/5. Hrsg. Sparkasse Leipzig (ISBN 3-9809160-1-4)
	100 Sächsische Grafiken. Hrsg. Neue Sächsische Galerie Chemnitz (ISBN 3-937176-02-0)
2002	Schnittstellen/interfaces. Hrsg. Städtisches Kunstmuseum Spendhaus Reutlingen(ISBN 3-933820-46-4)
	Holzschnitt heute – KunstPrice 2002. Hrsg. Sparkasse Ludwigsburg
2001	Natur - 4. Lucas-Cranach-Price der Stadt Kronach. Hrsg. Stadt Kronach Linolschnitt heute V. Hrsg. Städtische Galerie Bietigheim-Bissingen (ISBN 3-927877-43-3)
2000	Hartmut Piniek. Übersichtskatalog 1974 –2000
1998	Henne, Jürgen, Achtung, Ufos über Oelzschau! Malerei von Hartmut Piniek... LVZ 12.5.
1996	Hartmut Piniek. Katalog, Graphikangebot Müller, Leipzig
	Guth, Peter, o.T., Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 23. 3.
1994	Bildende Künstler in Leipzig. Hrsg. Neuer Leipziger Kunstverein, Leipzig, S. 167
	Kirchhof, Peter K., Archäologie in einer vergessenen verlorenen Landschaft. Hartmut Piniek – Ein Spurensucher in der Leere, die horen 39
1993	Europa Prijs 93. Hrsg. Stedelijk Museum Oostende (Belgien)
1992	Agricola, Christiane, Hartmut Piniek – Maler der zerstörten Natur. LVZ 28. 4.
1989	Guth, Peter, Leipziger Galerien im September. Sächsisches Tageblatt 27.9.
	Lybke, Hartmut Piniek. In: 4 Jahre Eigen+Art. Kassette und Dokumentation, Hrsg. G. H. Judy Lybke
	40 unter 40. Jüngere Künstler der DDR. Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen , Erwerbungen 63, Dresden.
1986	Krauß, Angela, o. T., Faltblatt Leibniz-Klub, Leipzig,
	Guth, Peter, Über den Dächern von Leipzig. Malerei und Grafik von Hartmut Piniek, ausgestellt in der Galerie des Leibniz-Klub, Sächsisches Tageblatt 8. 4.

Studio Hartmut Piniek

Straße der Freundschaft 11, 04571 Oelzschau
Tel.: +49 (0)34347 51640
E-Mail: atelier_hp (a) gmx.de

Available catalogues

-H.P. 2020-, publication date 2020
71 pictures, 100 pages, dimensions 26x23x0,9 cm, Softcover
with texts by H. Stecker, H. Zitko, A. Piniek

Price 20€ + shipping cost

-Hartmut Piniek-, publication date 2000
46 pictures, 57 sheets, dimensions 26x23x0,9 cm, Softcover
with texts by B. Roggow, H. Zitko, T. Sommer
Price 18€ + shipping cost

-Sehnsucht, Reisebilder-, publication date 2021
42 pictures, 52 pages, dimensions 21x21x0,5 cm, Softcover
with texts by A. Piniek and travel notes by H. Piniek
Price 15€ + shipping cost

-HP-, publication date 1996
10 pictures, 18 sheets, dimensions 14,8x21x0,2 cm, Softcover
with texts by H. Zitko und Reisenotizen von H. Piniek
Price 10€ + shipping cost

-small pictures-, publication date 2014
11 pictures, 10 pages, dimensions 22x21x0,4 cm, clampstapling
with texts by S. Tippach-Schneider, I. Piniek
Price 6€ + shipping cost

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