ARTIST’S APPROACH
Originally from Berlin, Germany, Bettina Hoffmann is based in Montreal, Quebec’s Mile End in Canada. She is a practicing artist and also teaches photography at the college level. Hoffmann received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Hochschule der Künste, Berlin and attended both the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, in Amsterdam. Her works have been exhibited in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, England, Romania, South Korea, Japan, the USA and in Canada. Her works also form part of several private and public collections in both North America and Europe.
Hoffman’s work is about communication and the impact of gestures and body language, the non-verbal, misunderstanding and the unspoken. Although each of her subjects appears to be present in the same space, the photos produce the uncanny effect of everyone being in their own world.
In La soirée – Construction, refusal or failure to conform to the rules of social relations reveals the fragile and contingent nature of the civilizing bonds that attempt to bind people together. Their relationships are depicted by their gestures, faces and body language, which give hints to comprehend the scene and situation, as well as the characters’ thoughts and feelings. The series presents itself as three snapshots of an event that could be a family gathering.
THE ARTWORK
La Soirée – Construction I, II, III
Installation in situ, 2002
In Bettina Hoffman’s series La soirée – Construction I, II III, individual figures are joined together to recreate a fictional social gathering. Separately shot, independent images are digitally assembled into a seamless collage, so the people featured appear to be occupying time and space in simultaneity. The photos are constructed as if they were taken in a succession of time.
In the context of the Art Souterrain Festival theme True or False, this series presents a perfect example not only of how images can be totally constructed but also how relationships are impossible to read and identify as authentic or fabricated in our modern visual world.
In La soirée – Construction, refusal or failure to conform to the rules of social relations reveals the fragile and contingent nature of the civilizing bonds that attempt to bind people together. Their relationships are depicted by their gestures, faces and body language, which give hints to comprehend the scene and situation, as well as the characters’ thoughts and feelings. The series presents itself as three snapshots of an event that could be a family gathering.
Curator : Maude Arsenault
