BASEL.- The works of Benedikt Hipp (* 1977, DE) are permeated by an array of socio-cultural themes. He investigates modern concepts and images of individuality, identity, and autonomy of the individual.

The poetic play of his environments, paintings and sculptures interweaves images and concepts with which he traces basic patterns of the cultic and its present-day relevance in society.

Has the time of humans expired or is it necessary to remind us of humankind’s time? A thought alluding to the title of his solo show at Nicolas Krupp Gallery, “Vacation From Human”.

Natural sciences and the humanities, archaeology, subculture, mysticism, fashion, and comics are just a few of the influences to which Benedikt Hipp makes reference with his diverse vocabulary.

In a new group of works, the artist falls back on his family collection of century-old, mostly waxen votive offerings and cast models that his family produced for generations. Prompted by this background, he raises questions pertaining to appearance and the survival of forms and images , as well as to the strong, relationship between objects and the identification with them. In “Augenpaare, (votive transformation), 2016”, for example, he transforms several votive eyes into polyurethane and mica pigments, almost representing the double direction of seeing.

With the work “MY SELF-X-RAY” from 2015, he poses the question regarding the relationship between visualization and identification directly to the viewer. This can also be found in the sculpture “The erratic block, 2016”, a boulder lying in the exhibition space that is at once due to its peaceful simplicity, magnetically appealing as well as absurdly comic-like reminding one of a dinosaur’s egg. The series of paintings titled “neonatal refractions” from 2016, on the other hand, vacillates between the utopia, reality, and fiction of neo-archaic forms of human existence. Seismographic layers reveal psychedelic references and scan the spectral parameters of fictional archetypes.

The topicality of his work is revealed in his intensive exploration of material and consciousness, and in the connection between post-humanist, socio-critical, cultic, and spiritual approaches.

Benedikt Hipp lives and works in Amsterdam and Munich