Josef Hofer
in the LaM Collection
L’artiste autrichien Josef Hofer né en 1945, que nous représentons depuis 2008 et à qui nous avons consacré deux expositions monographiques, fait maintenant partie du fonds du LAM, Musée d’art moderne, d’art contemporain et d’art brut de Lille Métropole, Villeneuve d’Ascq.
Arnulf Rainer, l’un de ses premiers collectionneurs, dit de lui qu’il est « l’un des plus grands artistes d’art brut » et comme le souligne Michel Thévoz, « Josef Hofer est en état de grâce ».
Josef Hofer, who has been a resident of an Austrian institution for more than 30 years, does not speak. He draws. Tirelessly. In the metaphoric mirror that he uses and reaches out to us, people attempt to flee from the straitjacket of the frame with eroticized and untamed grace. His works - to which Michel Thévoz has devoted several essays - depict a founding duality between body and psyche. Present in numerous museum collections, he is also part of great private collections: A. de Galbert (France), A. Shaker (Switzerland) and even in the collection of A. Rainer (Austria), who considers him “one of the greatest of the brut contemporary artists.” A significant number of his works was donated to the Centre Pompidou collection in 2021 while the gallery became the owner of his estate in 2022.