Judith Hopf: OUT

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ake a close look at a giant pear made of bricks, disappear into a ’flying cinema’ and meet a flock of ‘laptop men’ in a new exhibition featuring German artist Judith Hopf.

‘Art shouldn’t be too serious,’ says German artist Judith Hopf. And indeed humour is a key feature of the Berlin-based artist’s works as she explores how everyday objects, architecture and technology affect the human body, our behaviour and our relationships with each other.

In the exhibition you will discover works infused by a clumsy awkwardness as well as by playful humour – such as a giant pear and a walking house.

The giant brick and the walking house

Inside the exhibition, you can get close to a giant pear carved out of a solid cube built out of red bricks. Such illogical sculptures are typical of Judith Hopf.

You can also watch a video work featuring a walking house with a façade that looks like a face, the eyes lidded by awnings. At first, the building looks exactly like an actual house in Berlin. But when it starts to move around in later clips, it turns out that we are in fact looking at a person wearing a costume as they move around the city.

Merging man and technology

You will also meet a number of ‘laptop men’ at the exhibition: metal sculptures depicting seated, upright and reclining human figures that have merged with their laptop computers.

Hopf takes a curious, critical view of the impact that technology has on the human body – for example of how the laptop has practically become a prosthetic extension for all of us; one that we cannot do without. What impact does this have on human beings as individuals – and on the ways in which we interact with each other?