Press Release
The Stäel Museum presents a solo exhibition by artist Philipp Fühofer with 16 works altogether, including a site-
In the exhibition, sunsets and tropical forests shine out at the viewer from paintings and light boxes, their slowly pulsating light creating an enigmatic atmosphere. With a work conceived especially for the show, he moreover reacts to the architecture of the place: a curtain nearly six metres high echoes motifs from the seemingly paradisiacal landscapes around it. The visitors are invited to step through the curtain and take a look at what is behind.
Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum, comments: “hilipp Fürhofer’ artistic devices are illusion and the questioning of reality. In his art he focuses on the human being and nature. Transcending the canvas medium, he develops a contemporary answer to Romanticist painting. Fürhofer’ works challenge us to reflect on the world we live in and address the urgent matters of our time.”
The exhibition’ title Phantom Islands is an allusion to once-
In Fühofer’ works, nature presents itself as a place of the longing for perfection and the continuation of the ecosystem for all eternity. Many of his works are distinguished by a cyclical narrative structure ranging from growth to decay. His light boxes, in which the swelling and ebbing light reveals various sceneries, are a case in point. With his motifs the artist activates our pop-
Philipp Fühofer (born in Augsburg in 1982) lives and works in Berlin. From 2002 to 2008, he studied at the Universitä der Küste / College of Fine Arts in Berlin. His oeuvre spans the mediums of painting, installation and object art. Solo presentations have taken place at, for example, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in 2017 and the Augsburg Kunstverein in 2016, group exhibitions featuring his work at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in 2022, the Künstlerhaus Dortmund in 2016 and elsewhere. Fürhofer’ encounter with the theatre director Hans Neuenfels during his studies was seminal for his stage sets in the world’ most prestigious opera houses, works which have won him numerous international awards. He has moreover carried out designs for exhibitions such as Du bist Faust (Kunsthalle München 2018) and the retrospective Thierry Mugler Couturissime (Musée des beaux-
Director: Dr Philipp Demandt
Curator: Svenja Grosser (Deputy Head of the Collection of Contemporary Art)
Exhibition 12 May -
© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2023. All Rights Reserved
View of Philipp Fürhofer: Phantom Islands, 2023. Photo: Städel Museum—Norbert Miguletz.