Ull Hohn. Revisions

At a time when painting was often seen as an exhausted medium, Hohn initiated a renewal that emerged from the practice itself. In his works from the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hohn explored the intersection of formal and political questions, exploring sexuality and the body. He experimented with painterly forms that navigated between mass media appropriation and the tension between virtuosity and amateurism, opening painting up for self-reflection.

 

A recurring theme in Hohn’s work, which spans from figurative painting to abstract compositions, is the critical examination of traditional painterly concerns – especially those related to landscape painting. Notions of nature and naturalness were constantly redefined and consciously tied to current debates. For instance, Hohn explicitly addressed his own homosexuality, fueled by the discourses of the culture wars raging in New York in the 1990s and the activism surrounding the AIDS epidemic.

 

In the final years of his life, Ull Hohn concentrated on the series of works entitled Revisions, which lends this exhibition its title. Hohn revisited earlier works from his youth and re-examined classic motifs such as interiors, everyday objects, and still lifes from the perspective of a mature artist. The series can be understood as an artistic reflection on his personal development and life as an artist, at a time already overshadowed by his illness.

Hohn died in 1995 from complications related to AIDS at the age of thirty-five. For Hohn, returning to his artistic beginnings was a deliberate act of creating a biographical narrative and extending his earlier stylistic appropriations to his works.

 

Curated by Anna Gritz, director of Haus am Waldsee, the exhibition sheds light on the tension between formal dedication and the exploration of current artistic and political discourses. Questions about the relevance of painting and the positioning of an artist, especially in relation to one’s identity, shaped Hohn’s artistic path and remain central to subsequent generations of artists. In 2023, Haus am Waldsee presented a selection of Ull Hohn’s works as part of the exhibition Bruno Pélassy and the Order of the Starfish.  

 

Ull Hohn (*1960 in Trier; †1995 in Berlin) initially studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin (1980) before continuing his artistic training at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Gerhard Richter’s class (1984). He then moved to New York, where he took part in the Whitney Independent Study Program (1987). By the 1990s, his work has already been exhibited in major New York galleries such as White Columns, Stux Gallery, and American Fine Arts. His work continued to be shown in renowned galleries and institutions after his death, including Greene Naftali in New York (2023), Kunsthalle Bern (2016), Peephole, Milan (2015), Galerie Neu, Berlin (2015, 2006, 2000), Algus Greenspon, New York (2010), Between Bridges, London (2009), and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (1996), as well as in group exhibitions such as at the MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2023), Mumok, Vienna (2015), Museum Brandhorst (2015), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2015), and the Sculpture Center, New York (2011).