Lukas Hoffmann's 'EVERGREEN' at Monoprix During Rencontres d'Arles 2022

Lukas Hoffmann (born 1981 in Zug, Switzerland; graduated from ENSBA Paris; lives and works in Berlin) presents 'EVERGREEN' at Monoprix as part of the 53rd edition of Rencontres d'Arles, the second directed by Christoph Wiesner. The exhibition runs until September 25, 2022. Hoffmann shows isolated medium-format color images and several larger black-and-white polyptychs across 400 square meters of concrete, pillars, low ceiling, and windowless walls. Key works include 'Bronx River Avenue, NYC' (2016), 'EVERGREEN' (2021), 'Hecke bei Malchow' (2012), and 'L-Steine' (2020). The exhibition marks a shift in Hoffmann's practice: in 2018, he began photographing in the street without a tripod, using a view camera among passersby, producing 500 photographs of which about thirty are successful portraits. He shows seventeen 'Strassenbilder' (2018-19) on one wall. These images are full of movement, off-center framing, overexposure, and blur, capturing stature, attitude, gesture, tension, relaxation, folds, hair reflections, and glare. The series contrasts with his earlier rigorous polyptych technique. Hoffmann handles all printing, framing, and installation, as in previous exhibitions (e.g., at Le Point du Jour in Cherbourg, 2020-21). The exhibition relates urban and vegetal themes, drawing or fresco, densities of gray or contrasts, imposing or intimate scale. Anne Bertrand writes the article.