Galerie Peter Kilchmann

Peter Kilchmann opened his first gallery in 1992 in a former factory in the west of Zurich.A small group of galleries had ventured into this neighborhood, which then had little of its current hip appeal and was so far considered a purely industrial district.The gallery’s programmatic focuses on the media of photography and video art, which at the time were still little established and rarely shown in galleries. 

The first four years, the origins of the current programming are taking shape. The gallery reached maturity and entered a new age by moving into the Löwenbräu Areal in 1996. Between 1996 and 2010, the gallery grew into an internationally operating, successful enterprise.With the move to Zahnradstrasse in 2011 and the opening of new spaces at Rämistrasse in 2021, the gallery steadily continued its evolution.Each of these milestones in the history of Galerie Peter Kilchmann was accompanied by genuine curiosity and euphoria, and of course, always carried a certain risk. The opening of premises in Paris at 11-13, rue des Arquebusiers in the Marais in October 2022 marked another chapter. 

In the beginning, Peter Kilchmann exhibited mainly artists of his generation and has since strived to pave the way for a young generation of aspiring artists. Throughout the past thirty years the gallery continuously pursued and furthered a cohesive program representing artists from Latin America, Europe and the United States. A conceptual approach to the creative process and to socio-political circumstances – and at times startling language – is what distinguishes the gallery’s program with artists covering all fields of creative expression including painting, video, film, photography, installation and sculpture.All artists have in common their firm position with which they know how to transmit their point of view and get the viewer to engage with the respective object.