Zizka is the younger son of the social politician Walburga Zizka and Cyril Zizka, of Czech descendant. Initially trained as an art restorer, Peter Zizka went to study graphics, design, and visual communication at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach in 1983. At the same time, he attended the Städelschule in Frankfurt and studied under Bruce McLean, among others. In 1989, together with Achim Heine and Michael Lenz, Zizka founded the design company Heine/Lenz/Zizka. Parallel, in the early 1990s, Zizka and Olaf Rahlwes explored the interface between art and design with their MEMORYconceptual art exhibitions. After leaving MEMORY, Zizka worked on design projects that were socially relevant. In his work, Zizka adopts a less agitative position than that of a communication guerrilla or an adbuster such as Banksy. The most well known of his work from this series is The Virtual Minefield, the first floor-based installation spanning art and design. Zizka won the gold award from the European Art Directors Club for The Virtual Minefield. It was shown at the Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Foreign Office in Berlin and the Hygiene Museum Dresden among others. In 2008, Zizka won the design competition for the Kiel Week corporate design, following the likes of Wim Crouwel, Fons Hickmann, and Klaus Hesse. 2010 he starts an art Project in Burundi to render weapons of the HutuTutsi conflict harmless in real terms and at the same time initiate a process, by means of aesthetisation, which is relevant to society to open up a discussion on the issue of small arms tangible on a broad communication level. 2011 he received the fellowship of the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo. Zizka writes about design for the Swiss Bilanz magazine and is a freelance curator for the Museum für angewandte Kunst Frankfurt. Peter Zizka works and lives in Frankfurt am Main und Berlin. His brother, Georg Zizka, is the Head of Botany and Molecular Evolution of the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt.
»New Everything! A Century of New Typography and New Graphic Design in Frankfurt am Main«, together with Prof. Dr. Klaus Klemp, Prof. em. Friedrich Friedl and Matthias Wagner K, Museum für angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Frankfurt.
Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions
2016
»Under Arms. Fire & Forget 2«, curated by Ellen Blumstein, Dr. Daniel Tyradellis und Matthias Wagner K, Museum für angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Frankfurt
2015
»Secret Compartments«, Museum für angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Frankfurt
»Favourites. Favourite pieces from the private collections of Beckers and Landau«, Galerie Braubachstrasse9, Frankfurt
»Memory« with Olaf Rahlwes, Kunst Halle St. Gallen, St. Gallen
Further exhibitions of the »Memory«-Group from 1985-1994 include Fisherman’s Studios, London, Kunstraum Konstantin Adamopulos, Frankfurt, Galerie AK, Hans Sworowski, Frankfurt, Galerie Lukas & Hoffmann, Berlin, Galerie Single 74, Amsterdam, Galerie Vorsetzen, Hamburg und Galerie Schneider, Konstanz.
Works
MEMORY 1-24
Der Frankfurter Bankstuhlgang
Bois de Boulogne
The Virtual Minefield
IPRAY
Outliner
Symbiosis/Burundi constructed from weapons which have been rendered unusable
