Street pic­tu­res - Lu­kas Hoff­mann

The photographic works of the Zug artist, who lives and works in Berlin, have so far been exhibited primarily in French-speaking areas. He uses the opportunity of the fully glazed rooms of the Kunsthalle Luzern to present his highly acclaimed, self-contained series of works “Street Pictures”, which were created between 2018 and 2021 and have now been completed - also with the book publication of the same name from 2023. The photographic compositions focus on the unseen of everyday life and human existence, without giving any concrete references to locations, temporalities or personalities. With great formal, aesthetic and technical precision, Lukas Hoffmann creates minimalist images from an intuitive moment. Lukas Hoffmann's series “Street Pictures” is consistently kept in black and white, with the photographer using his large-format camera hand-held without a tripod. The focus is fixed at 80 centimeters and determines the proximity to the subjects being photographed. The artist photographs passers-by in public spaces on 13 cm x 18 cm sheet films, choosing almost exclusively back and side shots with fragmentary body details. Facial areas and long shots are deliberately excluded, not least to avoid the people being photographed finding out about their staging. The moments of everyday life captured are almost anti-spectacular, which fundamentally goes against the tradition of “street photography”, but on closer inspection stands out as inconspicuously profound. The large-format prints in the 102 cm x 72 cm format in particular have an enormous wealth of detail, which is particularly evident in the hair and skin areas or the material structures of the clothing. The random dynamics of individual images is further reinforced by an age-related defect in the view camera; Several holes in the bellows created scattered light inside the camera when the shutter was pressed for a long time, which caused a unique, bright veil to appear over the subject of the picture - visible, among others, in the street pictures IX, X, XX, XXIII, XXVII. Lukas Hoffmann shows an installation with three slide projections in the Kunsthalle Lucerne cabinet. Photographic images taken during an artist-in-residence stay in New York in 2016 are projected here. The work group “NYC Sidewalks” brings together a collection of formally aesthetic images of trivial situations in public spaces. Using a shift lens - a movable lens that allows the image section to move in the image circle - diptych photographs are created, which, as connecting images, represent temporal pieces of a certain 'scenery'. Within the method of presentation, new time-space compositions are generated, each combining a diptych image from one location with that of another location, which in turn emphasizes the divergence of the individual diptych. Supporting program: Friday, April 5th, 2024, 7:00 p.m. Vernissage with welcome and introductory words about the exhibition: Marius Geschinske, Director of the Kunsthalle Luzern SA, April 27th, 2024, 3:00 p.m. Tour of the exhibition with Marius Geschinske (Director of the Kunsthalle Lucerne) Friday, April 24th May 2024, 6:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. Film screening in the Stattkino "Finding Vivian Maier" and artist talk with Lukas Hoffmann Welcome: Peter Leimgruber, Head of Stattkino, Moderation: Marius Geschinske SO, June 2, 2024, 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Finissage