PHILIPP FÜRHOFER. Phantom Islands

Palm leaves, sunsets, forests – at the interface between installation and painting, tropical landscapes by the artist Philipp Fürhofer (b. 1982) radiate towards the viewer in light boxes and paintings. However, the romanticism of nature is deceptive: Beneath layers of paint bursts, questions regarding the existential, reciprocal influence of humans and nature, of capitalist civilisation, and the constant destruction of our living environment are revealed. With references from pop culture, Fürhofer highlights humankind’s ever-growing desire, in times of upheaval and uncertainty, for control over our immediate environment and ourselves – consumption, the body.

The Städel Museum presents the artist’s latest works in a focused solo exhibition. Its centrepiece is a wall-filling, site-specific work, with which Fürhofer enters into a dialogue with the architectural and artistic elements of the space. The result is a mystical jungle landscape in which not everything is as it seems.