round table
art brut, l’autre contemporain
As part of the exhibition Josef Hofer: The Motif in the Mirror, the gallery is hosting a roundtable discussion on the theme “Art Brut, the Other Contemporary,” bringing together the authors of the 270-page monograph published on the occasion of the exhibition by La Manufacture de l’Image.
With:
Elisabeth Telsnig, art historian and discoverer of Josef Hofer’s work
Fabrizio Donini Ferretti, curator of the exhibition
Philippe Dagen, art historian and art critic for Le Monde
Christian Berst, moderator
.
Josef Hofer, who has been a resident of an Austrian institution for over 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 considered him “one of the greatest of the brut contemporary artists.” A significant number of his works were donated to the Centre Pompidou collection in 2021 while the gallery became the owner of his estate in 2022.