ART CITIES: Berlin-Ull Hohn

For Ull Hohn painting was more than just an artistic medium – it was a space where discourse, technique, and personal reflections intertwined. At a time when painting was often seen as an exhausted medium, Hohn initiated a renewal that emerged from the practice itself. In his works from the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hohn explored the intersection of formal and political questions, exploring sexuality and the body. He experimented with painterly forms that navigated between mass media appropriation and the tension between virtuosity and amateurism, opening painting up for self-reflection.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Haus am Waldsee Archive

The exhibition “Revisions” offers a comprehensive overview of the various phases of the artist’s tragically short career and includes rarely seen works from his early years. True to Hohn’s vision, the exhibition brings together different series of paintings, allowing them  to conceptually enrich one another while engaging in dialogue with the house and its garden. Ull Hohn studied painting in Berlin and later in Düsseldorf under Gerhard Richter before moving to New York in 1986 to join the renowned Whitney Independent Study Program. He was drawn to the course’s theoretical focus, as it allowed him to explore the internal discourses of art in conjunction with the challenges and political possibilities of artistic practice. A central theme of his work—which spans figurative and abstract compositions—is the critical engagement with traditional painterly tropes, particularly landscape art. However, Hohn’s landscapes subvert conventional notions of the genre. Landscape paintings in the style of the Hudson River School, often close-up details of a single image,  are tinged in a yellowish hue that homogenises the surface of the painting while simultaneously revealing the artificial lighting of the photographic reproductions: using oil paint, the transfer to the canvas mimics the photographic surfaces. The “Joy of Painting” landscapes, based on step-by-step instructions from television painter Bob Ross, also address the specifics of mediated reproduction. Here, however,  the focus lies not only on the televised image but also on its dissemination through instructional guides. This series allowed Hohn to provocatively and dexterously challenge the hierarchies of skill and class within the art world. Hohn consciously deconstructed concepts of nature and naturalness by connecting them to contemporary debates that often revolved around identity politics—shaped by the heated discourses of the Culture Wars and activism surrounding the AIDS epidemic in New York throughout the 1990s. In this politically charged climate, Hohn began addressing his own (homo)sexuality. Small-format works featuring the word “SEX” were created alongside paintings with stencilled patterns derived from imagery from pornographic magazines. In a series from 1995, streaky, marbled surfaces in pale fl esh tones alternate with close-ups of masturbation scenes. According to Hohn, the gripping physicality of these images was meant to make a neutral viewing position in the sense of Minimal Art impossible. In the fi nal years of his life, Ull Hohn focused on the series “Revisions” (1994–95), which lends its title to this exhibition. Here, he revisited early works from his youth, reinterpreting classical motifs such as interiors, everyday objects, and still lifes from the perspective of a mature artist. This  series can be seen as an artistic reflection on his personal development and life as an artist—a biography already overshadowed by illness. Hohn died in 1995 at the age of thirty-five from AIDS-related complications. With this return to his artistic beginnings, he deliberately created a kind of autobiographical narrative, extending his method of stylistic appropriation to his own earlier works.

Photo: Ull Hohn, Untitled, 1993. Oil on canvas, 45,5 x 61 cm

Info: Curators: Anna Gritz and Beatrice Hilke, Curatorial Assistant: Pia-Marie Remmers, Haus am Waldsee, Argentinische Allee 30, Berlin, Germany, Duration: 31/1-11/5/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, https://hausamwaldsee.de/