Vue d’exposition / Installation view Hippydrome, Frac Normandie, Caen/FR, 2022Installation view Lothar Hempel WINDOW, 91 Walker Street New York, Anton Kern Gallery, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Anton Kern GalleryInstallation view FREITAG DER 13, Mehdi Chouakri Gallery, Berlin, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Mehdi Chouakri GalleryInstallation view, Sex and the City, Art : Concept, Paris 2016Amour Phou, 2016, ink jet print, aluminium and mixed media, 49 x 28 3/8 x 6 1/8 in, availablePlakat (1977), 2016, inkjet on Dibond, acrylic, mixed material, 102 x 102 x 3 7/8 inInterior (Paradox), 2016, mixed media, 13 x 13 x 3 1/4 in., private collection FRFool’s rock, 2010, mixed media, 94 1/2 x 35 3/8 x 35 3/8 inStyx, 2009, mixed media, 68 7/8 x 98 3/8 in. Public collection: CNAP FRInstallation view, CNAP (France), 2009Performance, 2015, ink jet print, aluminum and mixed media, variable dimensionsLothar Hempel, Instrument, 2013 Installation view, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, FranceOld New Girl (?), 2012, acrylic, oil paint, crayon and ink on primed aluminium, 98 3/8 x 35 3/8 in., 99 1/4 x 36 1/4 in. framedOld New Girl (Rise and Fall), 2012, acrylic, oil paint, crayon and ink on primed aluminium, framed, 78 3/4 x 98 3/8 in., 79 1/2 x 99 1/4 in. framedSignal Perplex, 2008, mixed media, public collection : Frac Limousin FRSignal, 2008 , mixed media, variable dimensions, public collection: FRAC Pays de Loire FRThe Mirror, 2008, acrylic on aluminium, 63 x 23 5/8 in.Wirst du jemals erwachsen werden ? (Will you ever grow up ?), 2007, mixed media, 90 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 in., public collection : FRAC Champagne-Ardenne FRThe Black Hour, 2004 MDF, plastic, aluminum, photographic reproductions and electrical clockwork, 110 x 100 x 59 in.Mantra, 2004, fabric, light bulb and electrical system, 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in.La Concubine, 2001, felt, rubber, styropore, metal and rope, variable dimensions, private collection GR
Biography
Lothar Hempel was born in 1966 in Cologne. He lives and works in Berlin.
He draws his inspiration from German history as well as from Californian New-Wave, Greek tragedy, pagan culture, music and cinema. His interest doesn’t reside in references as such: taking images for what they are or for what they convey in contemporary western culture is not his main concern. Rather, he seeks a re-appropriation akin to a way of seizing reality to make it circulate in his universe. His works are densely emotional, and instead of relinquishing themselves from the start in the form of a concept, they make us face lost or forgotten memories which we feel we could recover from one second to the other, thus engendering a multiplicity of individual interpretative possibilities and creating paths between dream and reality. Lothar Hempel creates a cosmogony – complete with characters, objects and environment – in which verbal and visual intermingle and by which previously distinct media clash in an almost violent way.
His work is in multiple public collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Art/US; Museum of Modern Art, New York/US and in several FRAC, Fonds Régionaux d’Art Contemporain/FR.
Recent solo shows include: WINDOW, Anton Kern Gallery, New york (2020); Le Terrain Vague, Stuart Shave / Modern Art, London (2018); Oral Heart, Anton kern gallery, New York (2017); Sex and the City, Art : Concept, Paris (2016); Working Girl, Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf (2016); Tropenkoller, Modern Art, London (2015).
