Tobias Hoffknecht

Jan Kaps is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition “Rehearsal”, with new works by Tobias Hoffknecht.

For his first exhibition at Jan Kaps, Tobias Hoffknecht has created two site-specific works. “Untitled” consists of two bed frames posed against each other, which opens the view onto interlocked, galvanized steel tubes. The rounded forms of one structure are faced against the rectangular forms of the other. Their surfaces at different heights, the steel mesh surfaces create varying levels leading to one united readymade. Hoffknecht‘s second work is titled “Rehearsal Room” and consists of two black PVC panels that form two long rectangular strips. Arranged parallel to each other, the surfaces created by Hoffknecht are glued to the floor and wall of the exhibition space.

Tobias Hoffknecht‘s working process begins on paper. His drawings, the sculptural basis of his works, are subjected to a substractive process. By increasingly reducing the preliminary sketch, he creates a minimalist spatial layout, which then takes on the form of an installation. The combination of installation and sculpture emerges out of a conceptual analysis of sculptural activity within the drawing, with the intention of breaking down and breaking through the respective space. Spatial references within the exhibition situation are witness to this symbiosis. Hoffknecht creates volumes through surfaces. Surfaces, which defer to the space, divide, usurp and break it. As a result, the space is created anew. Surfaces form the main components of the works in the exhibition “Rehearsal”, which occupy the space with their clear and highly reduced formal language.

Tobias Hoffknecht was born in Bochum in 1987 and studied through 2013 at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf under Rosemarie Trockel.