Nature as the Divine and the Sublime

As a big fan of Julius Hofmann's work and someone who had the chance to visit his studio, speak to him about his practice, contribute to his book, and curate his work in some of my projects, I felt that the recent period was particularly significant for the German painter. And after giving us a glimpse of what was taking place at Parisian solo with Galerie Droste back in February, the true scale of his creative seismic shift became fully obvious with his current solo, foreverglad(e), on view at Galerie Kleindienst in Leipzig.

After years of blowing minds with painterly low-res scenes of a dystopian urban world, Hofmann started shifting things in different directions. Usually, artists do this by introducing a new trope or motif, perhaps a new format, maybe dabbling into a new corner of the spectrum, but staying safely close to the recognizable “original”. Well, for an artist whose middle name could be “radical”, a slight shift wasn’t an option. More precisely, a single slight shift wasn’t an option, and all those changes (and more) are clearly visible in his current body of work, while still being unmistakably his.

One of the more evident shifts is the depiction of landscapes, one of the most ubiquitous yet clichéd, and perhaps outdated or used-up, tropes in painting. Moving away from cold urban environments reminiscent of 90s video game renditions, Hofmann’s countryside and scenes of nature are just as exciting, if not more so. Not only is he introducing new views, but he is also often producing different versions of the same view, as if to show how much potential his technique holds. But calling the way he paints a “technique” is somewhat misleading, as he doesn’t seem to settle on one thing. New paintings include anything from gestural backgrounds and established ways of mimicking the insufficient computer graphics to collage cut-outs, all of them coming together in some of the most exciting, varied, and original paintings you’ll get to treat your peepers to. Not to mention the great show title, which implies an eternal swamp/wilderness or a sense of contentment. —Saša Bogojev