Hyperkinesia

The Office gallery presents new works by the Austrian artist Bernhard Hosa in his exhibition Hyperkinesia, starting on June 30, 2016.

Hosa's photo collages, objects and installations are reduced, almost minimalist in appearance and usually based on concrete themes. His starting point is the tension between the individual and a normative society. Based on an engagement with the biological view of the inside and of the outside, on man as an object of scientific study and on the measurement of the human body, he develops his own formal language on the interface between conceptual art and an aesthetic approach. Hosa deconstructs his reflections with artistic strategies such as reproduction, variation or sequence, and practices such as dissection and the creation of new compositions. The resulting series of collages or objects and stringent arrangements of the space adopt the character of the contents of his research.

For the Office gallery he developed a new installation, in situ, accompanied by a series of collages. The sculptural objects and architectural components add a measure, a scale or a boarder to the rooms and split them in several respects: above and below, left and right, within and beyond, inside and outside. Their sterile aesthetics evoke associations to hospitals or asylums and the regulated and standardized principle of the constructions are contrasted with the individual and non-regimented appearance of the gallery space.

BERNHARD HOSA, born in 1979 in Amstetten (Austria, AT), studied painting at the University of Applied Arts Vienna from 1999-2004. His works are collages of simple forms, constructional elements and everyday materials, and oscillate between conceptual and representative strategies. A motive that is always present in his works is the human body. His pieces rarely show or represent the body´s outer shell. They should be regarded as analogies to the empirical-medical structures of norms and knowledge that human beings adjust to. These metaphors allow a negative form of the human body to arise in front of us.

Hosa was awarded the recognition prize for Fine Art by the state of Lower Austria in 2007 for his installations and objects. He is currently the holder of a studio scholarship from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture. His work is represented in private and public collections and has been shown in Austria and worldwide, in solo exhibitions such as at the Galerie Raum mit Licht, Vienna (2014), Neue Galerie Innsbruck (2014), Galerie 5020, Salzburg (2013) or Kunstraum NOE, Vienna (2012), and in group exhibitions, at the 21er Haus, Vienna (2015), CSULA Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles (2013), Salzburger Kunstverein (2012), RCM Art Museum, Najing (2006), and the Essl Collection in Klosterneuburg (2005).

Opening: Thursday, June 30, 2016, 20:00
Duration: June 30 – July 22, Monday - Friday 10:30 – 16:30
Outside opening hours via appointment only

With the kind support of the Federal Chancellery of Austria