Josef Hofer

Austrian, contemporary.
Born 1945, Wegscheid, Bavaria.

Having been born with numerous disabilities that affected his mobility, his hearing and his speech, Josef Hofer has undoubtedly lived a life of hindrances. However, it could be said that it is due to these impairments, rather than in spite of them, that Hofer occupies a place of praise in the art world today. Indeed, his art expresses a way of seeing unique to those removed from a ‘conventional’ lifestyle. In his works, figures are bordered, separated, and, perhaps even, isolated by uneven lines – it is a world of intricate delineations. However, what lies within is just as important as what lies without: Hofer’s ‘frames’ allow the margins of each work to pull the spectator’s focus outward from the center. The effect of these frames is that they render what should be a visual intrusion into an image of inviolable space – we are as much an outsider in Hofer’s world as he is in ours.

Raised in a cloistered environment on a farm in Upper Austria, Josef Hofer did not have much social contact until the age of 37, when his father died and his mother took him and his brother to live in Kirschlag, where he attended

a day clinic. The move proved to be beneficial to Hofer as he even began to say a few words. Eventually, Hofer became an inpatient at an institution in Ried, where the art historian Elisabeth Telsnig noticed his love of drawing and encouraged his creativity.

Often signed “Pepi,” Hofer’s works are essentially observations and narrations of his own life. His drawings can be seen as a kind of mirror, reflecting both Hofer and the spectator while also revealing the hypnotic infancy of art. As Michel Thévoz writes, “Josef Hofer is in a state of grace” – an erotic, untrammelled form of grace where the body strives to break free from the prison of the frame.

Biography

CV