Artist: Sarah-Jane Hoffmann
Exhibition title: The Absent Body
Venue: CINNNAMON, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Date: April 16 – May 28, 2016
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and CINNNAMON, Rotterdam
“She appears as a silhouette, mysterious and desirable, but the backlighting also draws attention to her as a physical volume, a bodily presence within the house with its own interior.”
Beatriz Colomina, The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism
We are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by German, Amsterdam-based artist Sarah-Jane Hoffmann at the gallery. For this show, Hoffmann created an overall installation with three new pieces.
Informed by an essay by Beatriz Colomina that describes a house that Adolf Loos conceptualised for Josephine Baker in the 1920’s, Hoffmann explores how the gaze can describe a certain physicality without describing a body.
In her essay, Colomina notes how architecture guides the human gaze to experience seducing images and moments. Taking this notion as a starting point, Hoffmann’s new work ‘Erotic System of Looks’ – installed in the front gallery – is a modular sculptural system designed to guide the human gaze through an architectural space.
The second gallery houses two works. First, there is an animated video showing an isolated muscle, entitled ‘Ritual Tissue’. The muscle moves as if it were existing on its own, reminiscent of more primitive life forms.
Secondly, a ceramic wall piece called ‘La Cometa’ baths in mysterious light, suggestive signifiers in what could be an unknown script.
Hoffmann’s works are sensual systems, celebrating corporeality in the absence of the body.
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann (Siegburg, Germany, 1984. Lives and works in Amsterdam) studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Rosemarie Trockel, and at de Ateliers in Amsterdam. She has exhibited at Playstation/Galerie Fons Welters in Amsterdam, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten in Marl, SSBA Salon in Amsterdam and Venus & Apoll (by Julia Stoscheck Collection) in Düsseldorf.
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, Erotic System of Looks, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, Erotic System of Looks, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, Erotic System of Looks, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, Erotic System of Looks, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, Erotic System of Looks, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, Erotic System of Looks, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, La Cometa III, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, La Cometa III, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, La Cometa III, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, Ritual Tissue, 2016
Sarah-Jane Hoffmann, Ritual Tissue, 2016