Jonas Höschl

80 Portraits: 73 Männer, 7 Frauen, is a consists of a carousel slide projector, a device which recalls quaint nostalgic activities such as looking at vacation snaps. This one, however, runs through black-and-white photos, all depicting people in the same portrait format. Some of the poses are menacing, while the faces have been blurred out. The signifiers that these figures wear on their body—tattoos, shirts, logos, but also suits and folkloristic German apparel—betray their allegiance to far right groups. Höschl has sourced the images online, from anti-fascist networks where they have a clear purpose: mapping the Neonazi scene, documenting its protagonists, and potentially warning people who might fall victim to violent attacks. In the current setup, the pictures are lifted not only from their context, but also deprived of their function. They call to attention the mediated nature of photography: usually, photographer and subject are at considerable distance from each other, and only in rare cases the look is reciprocated, when the antifascists themselves are being photographed. – Philipp Hindahl

"This criticism of journalistic reporting is repeated in his most recent work, And let my cry (2022): it is the transcript of an (internal) recording the Bavarian Broadcasting Company made during the setup and rehearsal for the memorial service for the victims of the racist attack in Munich’s Olympia shopping center in 2016. (...) False reports led to panic in the city, and despite the perpetrator’s unambiguous statements in chat forums, authorities long pointed to his psychiatric treatment as a motive for a supposed killing spree.", Mira Anneli Naß

"Time disappears and leaves behind memories - of people, moments, melodies. "Fade Away Medley" is what Jonas Höschl calls his work, which revels in the thoughts and feelings of a generation. Carried by the soundtrack of his youth, Jonas Höschl tells in the photo book of scenes of debauchery and rebellion, but also of pausing and looking up. The hedonistic urge for extravagance and exaggeration is palpable in the full-page photographs, which are juxtaposed and enter into dialogues of content and form in direct succession. The transfiguring view of days gone by is broken up by sobering images of conservative lifestyles and world views. The oppressive conformity goes hand in hand with the longing for dissolution of boundaries, which Jonas Höschl also embodies himself in his photographs. He confronts the dialectic of his pictorial milieus in order to overcome them.", Carina Essl (LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation)

A: Fade Away Medley 1 (11:09 min)
B: Fade Away Medley 2 (16:47 min)

LP Fade Away Medley
Artist: Jonas Höschl, Photography: Jonas Höschl,
Composer: Tydings McClary, Mastering: Emanuel Geller,
Presswerk: MATTER OF FACT,
Design: Michael Seibert (unfun)

The photo book Fade Away Medley can be ordered here.

"Jonas Höschl nimmt auf die Olympiade 1972 Bezug. Der (...) Künstler (...) setzt sich in verschiedenen Medien mit den als "heiter" intendierten Spielen auseinander, die mit der Geiselnahme der israelischen Sportler und einem Blutbad mit elf ermordeten Geiseln, einem toten Polizisten und fünf toten Entführern endete.", aus dem Artikel "Bayerische Kunstförderpreise 2021" von Roberta De Righi in der Abendzeitung München vom 04. Februar 2022

"Europe is lost (...) leaves an oppressive feeling. One photo shows a man whose face is completely masked, another wears dark sunglasses and smokes.", from the article "Nie wieder!" by Amelie Völker in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 05, 2020

"Nebenan nimmt Jonas Höschl auf die Olympiade 1972 Bezug. Der (...) Künstler (...) setzt sich in verschiedenen Medien mit den als "heiter" intendierten Spielen auseinander, die mit der Geiselnahme der israelischen Sportler und einem Blutbad mit elf ermordeten Geiseln, einem toten Polizisten und fünf toten Entführern endete.

Der Künstler verweist (...) auf Leni Riefenstahl, die das "Fest der Völker" 1936 unterm Hakenkreuz in Berlin filmisch heroisierte. Höschl macht aus Versatzstücken Anti-Propaganda.", aus dem Artikel "Bayerische Kunstförderpreise 2021" von Roberta De Righi in der Abendzeitung München vom 04. Februar 2022

"Manfred Weber (2019) consists of various samples from the commercials of 41 parties that contested the European elections in Germany in May 2019. The resulting mosaic of political diversity is dramatized musically; Falco's song "Europa" can be heard and the setting is based on Bavarian brass band music. Höschl examines the suggestive imagery of advertising agencies and makes clear how uniform the parties' self-representations are. The artist deconstructs the representations by breaking through the promising narratives with recordings of resistance and police violence.", HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark

Video-Production: Max Grünauer
Brass Music & Vocals: Philipp Lohmeier, Max Blechschmidt, Simon Kränkl
Lyrics: Falco, Thomas Rabitsch, Thomas Lang
Photography: Pilar Schacher

TW: Europe is a dirty doormat, initially presented in a show with the same name at EIGEN + ART Lab. TW is short for trigger warning, and visitors of that show had to step over that doormat emblazoned with the trigger warning pictogram one might see on Instagram, when explicit content is blurred out. Cross the threshold at your own peril. – Philipp Hindahl

"The word “crisis” is made up of two characters in Chinese" (This video is the B-side of Jonas Höschl's exhibition which can be seen on @ck_offspace's Instagram page).

The state feels like an expanding vacuum, like a journey from Earth to the planet Trillaphon. There are no points of connection to this space, which seems more airless, nutrient-poor, unsubstantial, crowded. There are planets on which nights feel like merging black holes, while one senses the collision of exoplanets 10000 light years away.

Text by Hannah Gebauer
Artwork by Jonas Höschl
Curated by Christian Kölbl
Animation Design by Felix Neumann
Sound Production by Kalas Liebfried

"Ein Lied für Deutschland - das ist der Titel einer Ausstellung im Kunstmuseum Heidenheim. Der Klangteppich dazu, teils mit Rhythmen rechtsgerichteter Demonstrationen, klingt bedrohlich. Der erste Impuls ist, sich umdrehen und weggehen. Trotzdem ist es sinnvoll, dazubleiben, eine gute halbe Stunde Zeit mitzubringen und einzutauchen in die Welt derjenigen, die nicht an die mögliche Gefahr durch Corona glauben, aber an die Schädlichkeit von Atemschutz-Masken  und an einen weltweiten Plan der Politiker, die Wirtschaft zu zerstören.", aus dem Artikel "Wie Corona-Verschwörungsmythen entstehen" von Martin Miecznik in SWR Aktuell vom 25. März 2022

Audio production and arrangement by Kalas Liebfried, video by David Spatz & Lara Fritz

Thanks to Sabrina Zeltner, Johannes Nussbaum, Nick Romeo Reimann, Willelm De Haan, Sabrina Reuschl, Linda Sakallah, Tannhäuser Kreis, Spring Break Art Residency and AVISO Magazine.