Matthias Hoch’s photographs are images of contemporary urbanity. In lucid compositions, his photos expose the materials of the modern age in all of their austere sensuality. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, they are ‘adequate images for postindustrial society.’ Objects are positioned precisely and with a keen sense of surface quality in the pictorial format and often evoke irritatingly ambiguous and puzzling effects by virtue of the artist’s choice of scale and perspective. Beginning with the rapidly changing urban landscapes of eastern Germany, the photographer has been exploring the ubiquitous formal language of modern European urban development. The views he presents seem virtually impossible to localize. They document Hoch’s critical, analytical approach to the space around us, yet they also exhibit a remarkable sculptural quality.
Matthias Hoch (*1958 in Radebeul) studied photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig. Solo exhibitions include Goethe-Institut Paris (2022), Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig (2016), Fotohof Salzburg (2016), Kunstmuseum Magdeburg (2014), Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Aachen (2006), and Kunsthalle Bremen (2002). He has participated in group shows at Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (2021), Museum Kurhaus Kleve (2020), Centre de la photographie Genève (2018), Paço Imperial Rio de Janeiro (2017), ZKM Karlsruhe (2013), Fotomuseum Winterthur (2013), Berlinische Galerie (2012), and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2009). Matthias Hoch has received residency fellowships at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France (2018/19), at the Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto, Japan (2013), and at the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome, Italy (2003). His work is included in such public collections as Berlinische Galerie, Kunsthalle Bremen, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Pinakothek der Moderne München, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Matthias Hoch hat in seinem Werk das Paradox einer dokumentarischen, ortsbeschreibenden Fotografie und die Umsetzung in abstrakte Bilder vereint. Thomas Weski, in: Matthias Hoch, BER, Spector Books, Leipzig 2021
Matthias Hoch's großartige Farbfotografien vermitteln am Schnittpunkt von Architekturfotografie und Kunst einen bizarren, fast surreal wirkenden Schwebezustand. Freddy Langer, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2.12.2021.
Matthias Hoch's Fotografien machen das Vergehen der Zeit sichtbar. Ernst Grandits, 3sat Kulturzeit, 5.8.2016.
Matthias Hoch’s mostly „unhabited“ pictures, which nevertheless suggest a strong presence of people. A set of stark images, which paradoxically, offer a warm sense of place. David Bate, Positional Space, 5x5 Photo Tracks, Vienna 2016.
Matthias Hoch forscht mit seiner Kamera nach Zeichen einer Ära, nach der Biografie des Ortes. Im diffusen Licht werden Narben, Abdrücke, Schichtungen enthüllt. Monopol, Berlin, 2/2015.
In Hoch’s work, the huge mass of sensory perceptions to which we are subjected daily is filtered through compositional schemes with great attention - almost sculptural in nature - to the internal balance of the solids and voids and rhythms created by their interpenetration. And yet these schemes always leave room for seduction, the essential element of expressiveness. Massimo Carboni, Artforum, New York, 10/2006.
Matthias Hoch’s Fotografien sind sparsame und irritierende Kommentare zu zeitgenössischer Urbanität. Susanne Altmann, art, Hamburg, 4/2005.
Ein Purismus der Farbe wie der Form, der die Dinge in die Abstraktion treibt, zur Essenz, zur Idee. Michael Stoeber, Eikon 34, Wien 2001.
top