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CULTUREEDIT ART AUCTION #6
Richard Hofmann
Richard Hofmann, Giz Wiz, 1987

Regular price $10.00

Details

A framed limited edition reproduction of the original monotype ink-over-watercolor monotype "Giz Wiz" by the artist Richard Hofmann (1954-1994).

15 x 12 inches framed

While overt eroticism was not the primary subject of Hofmann’s practice, it played a significant role, particularly in his iconoclastic religious paintings and photographic collages. In revisiting Giz Wiz, I was struck anew by its raw, unapologetic ferocity and exhilaration. Hofmann frequently painted animal or animalistic faces on human bodies—long before the likes of furry cons— forms distorted by his neo-expressionist hand until they hover in a charged liminal space between human and animal. Here, the inky ejaculation coils around the figure with jet-fueled precision, animating the composition with surging blacks, greys, and fleshy pinks set against an atmospheric olive-green drapery. The ink marks erupt, curl, spiral, and dance, transforming bodily emission into an abstracted fountain of celebratory energy—at once primal, unsettling, and as unmistakably vital as the muscular figure itself. 

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CULTUREEDIT ART AUCTION #6

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Richard Hofmann

Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1954, Richard’s unusual talents were evident early on, with his first watercolor show at the age of three. Educated at George Washington University and later earning a BFA in Painting from the Pratt Institute, he was also the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1989. After moving to Avenue C in Alphabet City, Hofmann worked as an art installer and art assistant while continuing his own career as a fine artist. A familiar figure in the East Village art scene for many years, Richard’s savage style of Neo-Expressionist figurative painting earned him a place among the “New Irascibles” showcased in Arts Magazine in 1985. He worked in media such as film, sculpture, photo lithography, watercolors, collage charcoal and even clothing. His murals decorated clubs over the years such as Club 57, The Pyramid Lounge, Danceteria, and the Roxy. But his forte was oil painting, and it is in the large 9’x 15’ canvases that his technique is most evident and his message most revealing. He was featured in solo shows at notable Lower East Side venues such as Limbo Gallery, ABC NO RIO, and the Steven Adams Gallery. Hofmann participated in numerous group shows including "Pain and Pleasure" alongside Robert Mapplethorpe at Fashion Moda (1984), "Figures" at Green Street Gallery (1983) and "Famous and Infamous" (1983) at Gracie Mansion Gallery. A ceaseless and prolific painter, the art of Richard Hofmann provides an unflinching window onto the tragic world of the young gay artist caught up in the AIDS epidemic which devastated New York just at the time as this unprecedented art scene was blossoming. A contemporary and personal friend of David Wojnarowicz and many other artists who suffered the same fate, Hofmann’s work is a rare time-capsule of work whose bold colors and iconoclastic themes leap off the canvas perhaps even more today than back then. His style has often been characterized as owing to the school of Neo- Expressionism, although his unique use of distorted figures and a multiplicity of baleful human faces is nowhere to be found except in his own work. One critic noted that Hofmann “tackled the larger questions of sin and redemption, religion and homosexuality, suffering and ecstasy with fervid brushstrokes and layers of intense color.”

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