Cadré et Recadré
by Terezie Zemankova
Terezie Zemánková, curator of the exhibition Rámy a rámce, has chosen to bring face to face the Austrian Josef Hofer’s drawings, shown at the Christian Berst Art Brut gallery in 2008 and 2013, and the contemporary Czech artist Eva Kotátková’s works, selected by Massimiliano Gioni at the Venice biennale.
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.