Bastian Hoffmann: Radical Negation: Cat Sprengel Museum X Feinkunst Hannover

Guided by Dadaist, kinetic and conceptual formal language, the work of Colognebased artist Bastian Hoffmann (*1983) plays an ambivalent game with the everyday: Walls that have a dynamic life of their own, or puddles whose supposed casualness is subject to stringent planning. Each of his works pulls away from fixed expectations and instead replaces them with (sometimes playful and humorous) moments resulting from artistic inspiration. Bastian Hoffmann not only scrutinises the general materiality of the objects he uses. Rather he shows that this materiality, as well as a supposedly normal contextualisation of the objects, is constructed through handling and treatment. Or with his words: As an artist, I utilise the freedom to ignore the so-called meaningfulness and productivity of an act in the creative process and to avoid compromises. Stones, cars and puddles can thus become objects of analysis and reflection, far removed from any striving for productivity, efficiency and economy. The final works are then products of this experimental search for the unknown possibilities of an object or a thought. For example, he is currently grinding a Porsche Cayenne into pigment by hand and with the simplest of means to create a brushable colour that forms the basis for large-scale paintings.

Reinhard Spieler (*1964, Rotenburg) has been Director of the Sprengel Museum in Hanover since 2014, having previously been Director of the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen since 2007. He completed his doctorate under Uwe M. Schneede on the triptychs by Max Beckmann and continued his academic work with teaching assignments at the Kunstakademie Dü sseldorf, the Universities of Dü sseldorf, Bern and Heidelberg, among others. His highly acclaimed exhibitions include those with Albert Oehlen and Carroll Dunham (2020), Alice Aycock (2019) and Julian Rosefeldt (2016). Alexander Leinemann is a scientific volunteer at the Sprengel Museum Hannover. Bastian Hoffmann (*1983, Frankfurt/Main) completed his studies at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne with award and has been exhibited extensively since then, including Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (2016), De Ateliers Amsterdam (2017), Ludwig Forum Aachen (2019), Missoula USA (2021), Museum Ostwall Dortmund (2023) and Sprengel Museum x Feinkunst Hannover (2024).