Dortmund
In his cycle of works Tannhäuser Tor, which began in 2012, the draughtsman and painter Alekos Hofstetter examines the constant changes in architecture from 1950 to 1980.
Their sometimes rapid disappearance reveals the failure of their former utopian promise. In his drawings and paintings Hofstetter constructs a new relationship between architecture and the surrounding landscape, in which this experience of loss becomes visible as a moment of melancholy. This impression is created by juxtaposing iconic, emblematic architectures and strange and alienated landscapes, whereby these arrangements are partly supplemented with lettering and elements from comics. The use of an apparently anachronistic drawing technique reminiscent of old printing techniques, which, however, is simulated with ink and edding, thwarts the moment of the past utopia. The partially large-format works oscillate between painting, comic and etching.
EVOL, on the other hand, works with found objects from public spaces, power boxes, used building materials, concrete bollards, to which it gives a new meaning through simple interventions.
He transforms the banalities of everyday life into architectures of a completely different scale by adding colour. Thus he paints over the base of a no longer existing technical device with the facade of an extremely insignificant residential house from the time of the large mass housing construction, without first subjecting the old block to a cleaning. Dirt, damage, traces of use make up the individuality of everyday life, become a special feature, enable inner voyages of discovery into the history of place and object. The flaws of the stock become a beauty spot of the new.
DOPPELPLUSMODERN is part of the double exhibition - Architecture meets Art, which also includes "Schwimmen in Geld".