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

"Through which framing do we perceive images? How comprehensively is our perception of global events influenced by their media processing? Which contextualization comes closest to the actual events? Can there be reporting that objectively reflects this?"

Raising questions like these - posed by art historian and photography theorist Mira Anneli Naß - rather than presenting answers, is at the core of Jonas Höschl's artistic practice. Based on his media-reflexive work, the artist gathers in Politics of Media Images numerous theorists, artists and authors who deal with media-theoretical questions in our increasingly fragile present time. The contributions make our social inflammations and injuries painfully tangible under a burning glass.

"He brings his own powerlessness into focus, addressing the journalistic routinization of news agencies and editorial offices in our digitalized world. The work was supported by the Alexander Tutsek Foundation and the Cultural Office of the City of Munich.", Kunstverein Baden (OE)

"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