“Compose your own PORTRAIT.” Worldwide

ARTIST PORTRAITS, 2006-2020
Artbook Publication in 2022

In his series of Artist Portraits, Thilo Hoffmann invited international artists to get portrayed in the way they want to present themselves. They choose the location, the theme and the time. Eventually they select their favourite shot. The resulting composition is the portrait of the artist as a self-representation.

The process at the core of the photo shoot is individually driven by the creative choices and approach of the artists as they carefully stage and direct it. Each portrait is a unique facet of the artist’s persona.

Altogether the series comprises today fifty-one portraits, which have been taken all over the world throughout a decade. The series is available in form of a publication entitled FIFTY (ONE) SELF PORTRAITS, in which it acquires a further level of self-representation with textual storytelling.

In the work FIFTY (ONE) SELF PORTRAITS each shot is accompanied by a brief passage describing the protagonist and the narrative of the scene. The texts are written either by the artist themselves or by authors they specifically selected for this purpose. The typology of the pieces is completely at the discretion of the author writing it. As a result, the book presents a heterogeneous mix of genres, such as poetry, fiction, short story, monologue dialogue and illustration.

More details about FIFTY ONE (SELF) PORTRAITS.

List of the artist portraits featured in the publication:

Thomas Hirschhorn, Pierre Bismuth, Sophie Calle, Olaf Breuning, Lawrence Weiner, Gregory Green, Mary Heilmann, Susan Hiller, Peter Joseph, Zilla Leutenegger, Ingeborg Lüscher, Mike Nelson, Tony Oursler, Philip Pearlstein, Ben Vautier, Roman Signer, Annelies Strba, Richard Wentworth, Huma Bhabha, Shannon Plumb, Silvie Defraoui, Lindsay Seers, Mona Hatoum, John Armleder, Ruedi Bechtler, Christian Jankowski, Cerith Wyn Evans, Diego Perrone, Adrian Schiess, Ursula Hodel, Ilona Ruegg, Una Szeemann, Karin Sander, Markus Weiss, Clarina Bezzola, Mario Airo, Laurie Anderson, Ursula Rydingsvard, Mélanie Matranga, Nic Hess, Niele Toroni, Not Vital, Gianni Motti, Severin Müller, Willie Doherty, Ulla von Brandenburg, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzinger, Beni Bischof and Alicia Velazquez.

Selected Portraits

Some portraits from this series were taken by Jonas Hildalgo
The curatorial project management is overseen by Silvia Converso