Lukáš Hofmann

Although Hofmann works mainly in the field of performance, his artistic practice reaches out to various other fields and media and is also active as a curator. Along with his peers, he slides down museum handrails, deforms his face by pressing it against glass and forms a red line between bodies using thread and a needle. He steals scaffolding nets in the dark, develops perfumes and exhibits them as Waters of Life and Death, films skin as it becomes leather. As a curator, he has invited an amateur duo of ornithologists to perform birdsong, had a recital held in a sauna, organised a string quartet concert and had a glasshouse built in the gallery’s garden.

He presented his work e.g. at MUDAM Museum of Modern Art in Luxembourg, at Centre Pompidou in Paris, CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, Moderna Museet in Malmö and Stockholm, Schinkel Pavillon and SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, Art in General in New York, Brussels Gallery Weekend, the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen, National Gallery in Prague and PLATO Gallery in Ostrava, at Cabaret Voltaire for Manifesta 11 in Zurich. In 2018, he received the Jindrich Chalupecky Award.

Do events on an individual's skin affect their creative work?
The dissertation project aims to investigate the hypothesis that skin pathologies figure as a psychosomatic agent, manifesting itself in the work of cultural producers, i.e. artists. The resulting artwork – the film-video essay Scratching the Itch – will utilise the genre of autofiction, and will be based on the knowledge gained at the intersection of the fields of philosophy, sociology of healthcare and skin art.

The interest in the topic stems from my own lifelong experience with dry, itchy, eczematous skin, and contemplation of the symbolism of decay and renewal, testimony of topology or the perception of the skin as a boundary separating the individual from the world. The dissertation project aims to investigate the hypothesis that skin pathology figures as a psychosomatic agent, manifesting itself in the work of cultural producers, i.e. artists.

The practical part will then take the form of the film-video essay Scratching the Itch, combining a fictional and documentary component, using the genre of autofiction, dealing with the topic of skin pathology and the definition of the artist's identity. It should collage both acting and performative elements, including poetry, singing, or recordings from interviews and collaborative artistic exercises.