Julius Hofmann
A Child Dances at Night (excerpt)
by Hans-Werner Schmidt (in: Re-Import. Julius Hofmann, 2015, MMKoehn Verlag, Berlin/Leipzig)
Julius Hofmann is a child of the media, yet as a painter he practices the import of images considered to be obsolete back to the canvas. Thus painting also represents a memory of databased images, not as an archive for them but as their reflection. And when HD technology makes for optimum screen definition, then Hofmann very recently responds with increasingly dough-like forms, as might occur with glass slide projections: in the heat buildup, Newtonian rings join poor focus, which coalesces the motifs in a soft, psychedelic play of color. Julius Hofmann can operate sure-footedly in the field of electronic media. While doing so, in order to document his confident treatment of the same, his processing mode is infantilization, a form of spirited ego demonstration that ignores the professional aspect as well as the “courtesy” in social intercourse. The formation of identity in this attitude toward work indicates distance to the popular medium and the corresponding user codex. The playful aspect dominates the instructions for use and user control. As his opposite, the easel demands more creative as well as physical power of Hofmann than the mouse click.
His muscle-bound characters wearing sturdy shoes and wielding a weapon embody apopular ancestral portrait: the screen hero Rambo, that markedly anti-intellectual alternative to the messianic Che Guevara. Rambo also goes out on his guerilla missions as a lone fighter, yet for all of his individualism he obeys the white-collar strategists in the Pentagon. These human fighting machines celebrate poses that in view of the deployment of drones and security firms operating in the background seem martial and helpless at the same time. Yet if one keeps in mind the uniforms and bearing of the globally active jihadists and separatists, suggestive power of these exceptionally aggressive men remains unbroken to this day. However, Hofmann ruptures these images. As is the case in many cinematic blockbusters, the main protagonists time and again take up new assignments in other media, as well as on the shelves in toy stores, where one finds the multipurpose male weapon as Star Wars warriors and Power Rangers, meanwhile in a consummated liaison with mangaculture as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or as Teutans. Hofmann also pays attention to these characters, in particular to their vulnerability and imperfection when, while putting them together, a child’s fingers cannot quite get the upper and lower body to fit properly and the heads that are for the most part disproportionately small are placed precariously on the figure’s shoulder blade. With Hofmann, heroes come across as being flawed handwork. A blow with the fist on the tabletop and the hero in the toy landscape falls apart. Hofmann intensifies this impression by depicting arms and legs to resemble folded cardboard boxes, borrowing from the field of advertising, as in the case of stylized characters like the Michelin man and various Liftboy figures promoting cleaning agents and whose legs serve the sole purpose of wearing creased trousers. By means of these figures, Hofmann finds a visual resonance space in the grandfather generation of today’s pictograms. And if all of these faces of death seem to us to be ossified and alive in equal measure, then is probably their relatedness to the mummery of James Ensor’s necrophilia as well as to the numerous visual documents of Sicilian catacombs, whose residents welcome us, at once present and absent.
1983 born in Göttingen (Germany)
2005-2011 Studies of Painting at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig
2007 - 2009 in the class of Prof. Neo Rauch
2009 - 2011 in the class of Prof. Heribert C. Ottersbach
2011 Diploma
lives and works near Göttingen
Solo shows
- 2023 Celesticore, Breach, Miami
- Western Philosophies, Galerie Droste, Düsseldorf
2022 Purple Haze, Plan X, Milan
2021 Brick & Mortar, Althuis Hofland, Amsterdam
Gardener of Solitude, Künstlerhaus Göttingen (Germany)
2020 Chimaera, Galerie am Ratswall, Bitterfeld (Germany) - The Will of The Gods is Great Power, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
- 2018 Cinematic Cybernetics, Museum of Visual Arts, Leipzig
- under der linden, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
under der linden II, Ornis A. Gallery, Amsterdam
ART COLOGNE New Positions - 2016 Might of Young Engines, SSZ Sued, Cologne
- 2015 Might of Young Engines, Ornis A. Gallery, Amsterdam
Ecstatic Solitude (with Michael Kirkham), Gallery Kleindienst, Leipzig
2013 Mustang, Villa Katzorke, Essen
Stony Fields, Ornis A. Gallery, Amsterdam
Regulator, galerie baer, Dresden
Initiative and Surrender, Gallery Kleindienst, Leipzig
2011 The harvest of live, Gallery Kleindienst, Leipzig
Aurora, Ornis A Gallery, Utrecht (The Netherlands)
"Nemesis", UNC Gallery, Seoul (South Korea)
Group shows
- 2022 XY, Rundgänger, Frankfurt am Main
Chronicles 4, Galerie Droste KPM, Berlin
Bilderkosmos Leipzig. 1905-2022, Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig
2021 the_orgre.net, Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris
Laying under the Hot Shade of a Mad Song, Shai Yehezkelli, Kopenhagen
NEW, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig - 2020 We are open, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
2019 Contemporary Visions IX, Beers Gallery, London - The Leipzig Connection, Croatian Association of Artists (HDLU), Zagreb (Croatia)
- Dark and Stormy, Espronceda Center for Art and Culture, Barcelona
- 2018 MdbK meets G2. Painting from Leipzig since 2000, Museum of Visual Arts, Leipzig
- 2017 Colors of Descent, G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig
- Artists of the Gallery, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
- 2016 Your Light Is My Darkness (part III), Gerhard Hofland, Amsterdam
- Your Light is my Darkness (part II), Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg
Kunsthochschulen zu Gast. HGB-Fachklasse Prof. Ottersbach, Bayer Kultur, Leverkusen
Storyteller. Contemporary Art from Leipzig, National Art Museum & Goethe Institut Hanoi (Vietnam) - Immer und Ewig. 23th Leipziger Jahresausstellung, Westwerk Leipzig
- Tiere sehen dich an, Zionskirche, Berlin
- 2015 Nocturne. Ahnung, Abgrund und Apokalypse in der zeitgenössischen Kunst, Kunsthalle der Sparkasse, Leipzig
Personalities on Paper, Ornis A. Gallery, Amsterdam
Gute Kunst? Wollen! SOER-Rusche Collection, Auf AEG, Nürnberg
Wahrheiten, Museum Abtei Liesborn, Liesborn (Germany)
Your Light is my Darkness (I), Re:Surgo, Berlin
2014 bb, Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig
Wahrheiten - works from SØR Rusche Collection oelde/Berlin, Bayer Kulturhaus, Leverkusen
BGL#1, Kesselhaus, Bergisch Gladbach / Cologne
Mensch werde wesentlich, Art association FAK, Zwickau
Class Ottersbach - The horses are dead, Forum Kunst, Rottweil
2013 Un été spectaculaire, Ornis A. Gallery, Amsterdam
WIN /WIN - Purchases by the Cultural Foundation of Saxony 2013, Baumwollspinnerei HALLE 14, Leipzig
Blumen, Flowers, Blomster, Galerie Mikale Andersen, Berlin
Tierstücke - Dutch animal painting of the 17th century in dialogue with contemporary painting, SØR Rusche Collection Oelde/Berlin, Museum Abtei Liesborn, Liesborn
2012 German now - from Leipzig, Seongnam Art Center, South Korea
New Smokes from Old Fires, Frappant, Hamburg
Eros und Thanatos (SØR Rusche Collection), Werkschauhalle Leipzig
A:B:C: Mooning, Gallery FIST, Hamburg
2011 18. Leipziger Jahresausstellung
After the Goldrush, art association Speyer
Gallery Genscher, Hamburg
Chamber of wonders, Amsterdam
Convoy Leipzig, Biksady Gallery, Budapest
Saxonia Paper, Kunsthalle of Sparkasse Leipzig
2009 Curse of akribic, art association Bad Sulzfeld
Black swans, Junges Forum, Wiesbaden
2008 Young Art 13 - Christoph Freidhöfer, Sonja Kälberer, Julius Hofmann, Albrecht Pischel, Danny Schulz | Paintings, Photography, Installation, Video, Gallery Kleindienst, Leipzig
Bibliography
- 2015 Julius Hofmann - REimport (catalog), MMKoehn, Leipzig/Berlin
Nocture. Ahnung, Abgrund und Apokalypse in der zeitgenössischen Kunst (catalog), Sparkasse Leipzig - 2012 German Now. From Leipzig (catalog), Seongnam Arts Center and UNC Gallery, Seoul (South Korea)
- 2011 Convoy Leipzig (catalog), Biksady Galerie, Budapest
Julius Hofmann: Die Ernte des Lebens (catalog), LUBOK / Gallery Kleindienst, Leipzig
"Julius Hofmann", in: Salié, Olaf: Rising. Young artists to keep an eye on. Köln: daab.