Galerie Dantendorfer
KURT HÜPFNER
Individuelle Mythologien
14 November – 18 December 2024
Exhibition: Individuelle Mythologien
Artist: Kurt Hüpfner
Duration: 14 November – 18 December 2024
Kurt Hüpfner spent almost his entire life outside the established art world, creating an impressive oeuvre consisting of more than 2,500 drawings, nearly 200 sculptures, 120 paintings, as well as numerous assemblages and collages. Despite — or perhaps precisely because of — having worked in obscurity for so long, he developed an independent and powerful visual language.
Born in 1930, Hüpfner grew up in Vienna during the Second World War; his youth was marked by bombings, air-raid shelters, and post-war chaos. These traumatic experiences repeatedly permeate his entire body of work. From 1947 to 1950, he completed training as a commercial graphic artist at the Higher Federal Teaching and Research Institute for Graphic Arts in Vienna. In 1961, he began an intensive engagement with art and a sustained drawing practice, initially focusing primarily on studies of nature.
The themes that occupied the artist range from history and religion to myth and the realm of premonition. His oeuvre frequently features tragic heroes from mythology and religion. A lasting role is played by the concept of the omen — understood by Hüpfner as sensing the presence of “an invisible third,” which he refers to as the “numinous”: both eerie and alluring at once. Distancing himself from Christian belief, he maintained a decidedly pessimistic stance: “Figures of light do not exist for me. But the darkness, so threatening — that is what I believe in.” From this emerged the central body of work Omen, documenting the numinous through everyday encounters with people and objects.
Through his oeuvre, Kurt Hüpfner offers viewers insight into the events, religions, and myths of our world. Each artwork bears his distinctive signature of contour, surface, and form — allowing us to glimpse how the artist perceived the world.
Text: Selin Stütz-Staudinger
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