Lothar Hempel
Alphabet City

Working across a wide range of media, Lothar Hempel (*1966, Germany) stages elaborate installations which are as much theatrical possibilities as artworks. His consctructed situations confront the viewer with open-ended dramas and ideological dilemnas. His paintings and puppet-like figures, both exist as potential casts for his scenarios. Reminiscent of Bertolt Brecht's theater, Hempel's work does not provoke emotional engagement, but rather the viewer's critical reaction to the presented narratives, and the ideology of storytelling. With a designer's elegance, Hempel combines aesthetics from the past and the present, quoting medieval tapestries and early modernism, always infused with a sense of tragedy, mythology, or the burlesque.

The book is the first reference monograph dedicated to the German artist and is published with Le Magasin, Grenoble, on the occasion of his retrospective exhibition.