On the Berlin floor of Apartment No:26, we draw back the curtains today for an artist who has fled the sterility of the digital and taken refuge in the “high margin of error” world of the analog: Peter Piller. Running until February 21, 2026, Bürgerliche Dämmerung (Civil Twilight) leaves us not merely with an exhibition, but with a state of twilight suspended between data, stocks, and birds. After years spent among dusty archive shelves, Piller has turned away from the overly bright world of the digital—where everything is made instantly accessible—and chosen instead the more difficult yet more satisfying path where one only understands what one has done after it is done. If you, too, believe in the poetry of a document that has slipped behind a shelf or a memory that has been misfiled in a world where everything runs smoothly, the air on this floor is exactly for you.
Against the Sterility of the Digital: The Mess of the Analog
Peter Piller has long been known as the man who works with archives. Yet in this exhibition, we witness his effort to shed that label. The artist argues that in digital archives everything is too fast, too accurate, and therefore too soulless; he prefers the ambiguity offered by the analog. In the digital realm, nothing falls behind a shelf, nothing gets lost by accident; everything is sterile and under control. Piller senses that something is missing within this control—that the “pure reality” which cannot be digitized is being left behind. Like the smoke rising from our boiler room, the artist’s process is somewhat chaotic and unpredictable; he only understands what he has done once the work is finished.
DAX, Gray Boxes, and Life as “Klumpenrisiko” (Cluster Risk)
Upon entering the foyer of the exhibition, you are greeted by drawings woven with the cold terminology of the financial world: “DAX” and “Klumpenrisiko” (Cluster Risk). These words are scattered across pages within gray boxes and grids.
While transforming these digital typefaces into small gray boxes with watercolor, the artist is actually asking a very old question: “What is this?” Referencing the exhibition’s title (Civil Twilight), these works whisper of the social division and fear of loss created by banks, stock markets, and speculation. The grid system, which offers mathematical certainty, here symbolizes the fragility of financial systems that appear unshakable yet could collapse at any moment.
Muybridge’s Eagle: The Anatomy of a Broken Umbrella
One of the most striking details in the exhibition is an eagle photograph placed directly beneath the DAX drawings. Yet this is not a majestic predator; it is an image borrowed from Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies.
Piller deliberately chose this eagle because the bird in the photograph looks less like a glorious creature taking flight and more like a “discarded, broken umbrella.” Muybridge’s famous grid background—used to analyze and measure motion—here enters into dialogue with Piller’s “gray boxes.” The eagle positions itself as a “twilight helper” amid the chaos created by stock-market terminology. Scientific precision and artistic blur intersect and blend at this point.
Rome’s Light and Berlin’s Shadows
Piller is currently living in Rome as a fellow at Villa Massimo. After the rain of Hamburg and the discipline of Düsseldorf, he is savoring the sharp, separating light of Rome that makes every object stand out clearly. Yet the “twilight” spirit that gives the exhibition its name does not come from Rome, but from photographs taken in Germany itself. In Rome, the artist simply walks, reads, and talks with other artists. When he returns to Berlin, we will likely see traces of these Roman walks in new photographs and drawings.
Exhibition Information
Artist: Peter Piller
Exhibition: Bürgerliche Dämmerung / Civil Twilight
Dates: Until February 21, 2026
Location: Berlin (Apartment No:26 Berlin Floor)
Peter Piller’s exhibition is a tribute to those small, blurry, and misunderstood moments that get lost in the speed of the modern world. Listen to the silence of this floor to witness an artist—who has swallowed the dust of archives but has not surrendered his soul—walking the thin line between rationality and emotion.
