I'm a multidisciplinary artist that focuses on the text based visualisation of my thoughts in different scenarios. Those media include might include some more conventional canvases such as linen and paper, but also human skin and public walls. I'm also known as Maison Hefner.
The MullenLowe NOVA People’s Choice Award was the first award that I ever won, which made me extremely proud of myself, it encouraged me to go all in. Somehow it was a validation that what I was doing was not so silly after all, that there is actually a purpose in what I was doing. Which of course is debatable.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN002
Title: Possibilities On Paper
Date: 2020
Author: Curated by Luisa Schlotterbeck Fiebach
Details: Possibilities on paper is a conceptual exhibition that does not show works in the classic sense of authorship. The exhibition presents a series of black and white copies that have been designed and stated by different personalities from various areas of society.
Media: Exhibition
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Description: For this purpose, the curator asked artists, gallery owners, economists, entrepreneurs, politicians, journalists, scientists, and curators, among others, for contributions and ideas that reflect the current situation resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
Possibilities on paper transforms the gallery into a space of thought and gathers statements, points of view, oscillating ideas, questions of faith, knowledge or hopes for the present. The question of the exhibition aims at a situated or historical now. What can be a present life model? Where is it anachronistic? What is a present now and what can the term contemporary do? The question is not new, time is. The exhibition can be understood as a gesture of pause in the largest incision since the end of the Second World War.
In this exhibition experiment, the curator wants to consider the seriousness, but also the resulting hopes. It invites you to take a step aside in times of communicative sprints, to take a deep breath and to see the now by looking inwards. Until the opening, the curator does not know which image is going to be created by these views.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN004
Title: Vino Magico
Date: 2019
Author: Montague Richthofen, Miles Schuler and Philipp Zrenner, photographed by Christoph Schaller
Details: At the Vino Magico exhibition, three different artistic positions will come together in a former car repair shop for a week, Monty von Richthofen, Miles Schuler and Philipp Zrenner show their latest works in the field of painting. The exhibition shows the interplay of the various approaches of the young artists and included an insight into their artistic practice, which seems to merge into a collect experiment, in a collaboration works.
Media: Exhibition
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Description: The starting point for the cooperation of the three friends will be a trip to the Tuscan countryside in the middle of the year. In an old farmhouse, material is worked on for weeks in practical as well as theoretical execution. This is produced during the stay in Italy and discussed with Italian wine. There is a lot of potential for discussions, as all three seem to be moving in different areas of art, which, however, are often very close in terms of subject matter.
The various positions such as working with writing, tattooing and performance (Monty von Richthofen), painting (Miles Schuler) and sculpture (Philipp Zrenner) found their origin in graffiti and the resulting confrontation with urban spaces, colour, Underground, composition and collaborative work.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN013
Title: Tattoo Machine
Date: NA
Author: NA
Details: A tattoo machine is a hand-held device generally used to create a tattoo, a permanent marking of the skin with indelible ink.
Media: Tattoo machine
Credit: wikipedia.org/Tattoo_machine
Description:
Reference: RICHTHOFEN014
Title: Spray Can
Date: NA
Author: NA
Details: Graffiti is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view.
Media: Spray can
Credit: wikipedia.org/Graffiti
Description: Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN015
Title: Analog Camera
Date: NA
Author: NA
Details: A camera is an optical instrument that captures a visual image.
Media: Analog Camera
Credit: wikipedia.org/Camera
Description: The word camera comes from camera obscura, which means "dark chamber" and is the Latin name of the original device for projecting an image of external reality onto a flat surface. The modern photographic camera evolved from the camera obscura. The functioning of the camera is very similar to the functioning of the human eye.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN006
Title: Anti Everything
Date: NA
Author: Montague Richthofen
Details: Tattoo
Media: Photography
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Description: On the one hand these images exemplary demonstrate my interdisciplinary way of working. On the other hand they reveal insights on pieces I created alone, as a collective with Vino Magico or incognito – be it lasting or ephemeral.
I document my work and artistic research, souvenirs and encounters. Beside this documentation which also traces my physical path, I consider language and writing as an interesting part of aesthetic perception and seemingly as the core point of my artistic practice.
Coming from Graffiti, the meaning of the term „literally“ becomes quite funny, bad ass or charming depending on how you look at it. Writing has always been closely connected to the performative act of spaying and with time I got more and more interested in relations, whether between different media, artistic disciplines or between space and substance. This is basically what happens when you put a word anywhere – it becomes embedded in relations.
While studying I got introduced to performance art and started to work on human skin. At that time I conceptualised my first tattoo performance. It took a few more years until I got to realise more sculptural and painterly ideas, although this development might seem pretty obvious today.
Altogether these images can be considered a permanent component of my practice, thus giving insights on something oscillating between „archive“ and „diary“ or „document“ and „memory“.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN007
Title: No Need To Comment
Date: NA
Author: Photograph by Montague Richthofen
Details: Spray paint on wall
Media: Photograph
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Description: On the one hand these images exemplary demonstrate my interdisciplinary way of working. On the other hand they reveal insights on pieces I created alone, as a collective with Vino Magico or incognito – be it lasting or ephemeral.
I document my work and artistic research, souvenirs and encounters. Beside this documentation which also traces my physical path, I consider language and writing as an interesting part of aesthetic perception and seemingly as the core point of my artistic practice.
Coming from Graffiti, the meaning of the term „literally“ becomes quite funny, bad ass or charming depending on how you look at it. Writing has always been closely connected to the performative act of spaying and with time I got more and more interested in relations, whether between different media, artistic disciplines or between space and substance. This is basically what happens when you put a word anywhere – it becomes embedded in relations.
While studying I got introduced to performance art and started to work on human skin. At that time I conceptualised my first tattoo performance. It took a few more years until I got to realise more sculptural and painterly ideas, although this development might seem pretty obvious today.
Altogether these images can be considered a permanent component of my practice, thus giving insights on something oscillating between „archive“ and „diary“ or „document“ and „memory“.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN009
Title: Happiness We Never Heard Of
Date: NA
Author: Photograph by Montague Richthofen
Details: Spray paint on wall
Media: Photograph
Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Description: On the one hand these images exemplary demonstrate my interdisciplinary way of working. On the other hand they reveal insights on pieces I created alone, as a collective with Vino Magico or incognito – be it lasting or ephemeral.
I document my work and artistic research, souvenirs and encounters. Beside this documentation which also traces my physical path, I consider language and writing as an interesting part of aesthetic perception and seemingly as the core point of my artistic practice.
Coming from Graffiti, the meaning of the term „literally“ becomes quite funny, bad ass or charming depending on how you look at it. Writing has always been closely connected to the performative act of spaying and with time I got more and more interested in relations, whether between different media, artistic disciplines or between space and substance. This is basically what happens when you put a word anywhere – it becomes embedded in relations.
While studying I got introduced to performance art and started to work on human skin. At that time I conceptualised my first tattoo performance. It took a few more years until I got to realise more sculptural and painterly ideas, although this development might seem pretty obvious today.
Altogether these images can be considered a permanent component of my practice, thus giving insights on something oscillating between „archive“ and „diary“ or „document“ and „memory“.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN010
Title: L'Étranger [The Outsider, UK] [The Stranger, US]
Date: 1942
Author: Albert Camus
Details: L'Étranger is a 1942 novella by French author Albert Camus. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of Camus' philosophy, absurdism coupled with existentialism, though Camus personally rejected the latter label.
Media: Publication
Credit: wikipedia.org/TheStranger(Camus_novel)
Description: In January 1955, Camus summarised the story, with a remark he admits was highly paradoxical: "In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death." “I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.”
Reference: RICHTHOFEN017
Title: Nolens Volens
Date: 2014
Author: Rizote and Saeio
Details: NA
Media: Film [8m26s]
Credit: saeio.paris/nolens-volens
Description: This video changed my view towards graffiti and interventions in the public space. It was the first time I consciously observed other practitioners using a technique that normally would go totally against the idea of their practice, playing with ephemeral nature of graffiti. This influenced me into exploring how buffing (removing graffiti) can be used to highlight certain aspects of the texts within my work.
Reference: RICHTHOFEN016
Title: 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People ...
Date: 2000
Author: Santiago Sierra
Details: 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People ... is a video documenting an action that took place at El Gallo Arte Contemporáneo in Salamanca, Spain in December 2000. Media: Image
Credit: tate.org.uk/160-cm-line-tattooed-on-4-people
Description: The artist’s text explains "Four prosititutes addicted to heroin were hired for the price of a shot of heroin to give their consent to be tattooed. Normally they charge 2,000 or 3,000 pesetas, between 15 and 17 dollars, for fellatio, while the price of a shot of heroin is around 12,000 pesetas, about 67 dollars."
Reference: RICHTHOFEN008
Title: Stand der Dinge
Date: NA
Author: Montague Richthofen, photographed by Felix Brenner
Details: mixed media installation at Bistro 21, Leipzig,
Media: Installation (image of)
Credit: Courtesy of the artist.