Klara Hobza
Self-portrait

19 January until 17 February

The artist‘s biography is a matter of myth-making. Great names in art history gain impact through intimations of an exciting life. In the context of an exhibition, the biography on a simple wall plaque makes for a more in-depth understanding of the works. It relies on a retrospective view of significant events in contemporary history and on the individual life of the artist, a biography of seemingly indisputable and facts.

With her ongoing series Biography (2002, 2012, 2022), Klara Hobza dispels the myth of constancy from the medium of biography. Each of the three variations, occurring at intervals of ten years, begins with birth and ends with the artist‘s future death. The biography‘s elements shift position, gaining or losing significance with the passage of time. Hobza writes her own history, selecting and reorganizing facts and fiction anew. The focus of this work is what might be relegated to a footnote in the institutional context.

However, the series does not only address biography in the context of the institutional exhibition. The examination of one‘s own life proves to be fleeting and unreliable for the artist as well. At 27, her future promises excitement, a time filled with sexual freedom and political revolt. The first biography reflects the heat of youth and the desire to experience one‘s own life fully, with all its ups and downs. At 37 and again at 47, the desire for excitement diminishes. Instead, one‘s goals become more specific in the vision of the future. The perspective on the past also changes over time. In the process of self-becoming, other experiences gain significance. Romance and excess recede into the background and become marginalia. The importance of work as the center of attention increases. Recognition of one‘s own achievement and fulfillment in the sense of one‘s own creation form the basis for Hobza‘s future visions in the later evolutions of the biography. A life story proves to be a fiction understood subjectively, with even the past subject to change.

Klara Hobza received a diploma from the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and and holds a MFA from Columbia University.

Her work has been exhibited internationally since 2005. Hobza’s most recent exhibitions include The Breathing Trilogy, Soy Capitán, Berlin, DE (2023), Interactions, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Bonn, DE (2023), Dem Wasser Folgen, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, DE (2022), PAPIER, Kunstverein Bamberg, DE (2021), Animaloculomat, Naturhistorisches Museum, Basel, CH (2020), Naturama, Aargau, CH (2020-2021), Soy Capitan, Berlin, DE (2018), Kunsthaus Zürich, CH (2017), Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, DE (2017), Bon Voyage! Reisen in der Kunst der Gegenwart, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, DE (2020) and In aller Munde. Von Pieter Bruegel bis Cindy Sherman, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, DE (2020). In 2021, a selection of works of Hobza’s Diving Through Europe cycle was added to the national collection of Germany (Sammlung der BRD).

Klara Hobza, born 1975 in Pilsen, Czech Republic, lives and works in Berlin and Paris.