Dromos

D. D. D. D. is pleased to present Dromos, an exhibition by New York-based artist and photographer Philipp James Hoffmann. This will be the artist's first solo exhibition in the United States of America. Competition Motocross and Freestyle Motocross (MX and FMX) events form the subject of the exhibition's imagery. Hoffmann takes footage of these competitions and physically enlarges them by projection. The artist finds scenes in the footage, which remains in motion, and photographs them. These initial images then go through cycles of re-projection and re-photography by the artist until he deems the results satisfactory. The resulting images inherit the marks of this entire process, fragmented, blurred, and mutated by speed and reiteration. These final photographs attain a manner of immanence, in which the characteristics of the smeared, broken, and distorted apply to both the pictures and the situation through which they arose: The grime and danger of MX/FMX. In their intensity, the images also nod to the monstrosity of Futurism. In their monstrous nature, the violent and the romantic commingle, the obliterating smudge turns into something pure and optical, and the torn-apart turns precariously sensual. Nevertheless, Hoffmann's works return to their sources; these are rugged sportsmen engaged in a dirty and dangerous endeavor. The light and color that surround Hoffmann’s figures frame the contradictions of violence, containing a romance that is both senseless and monumental. Philipp James Hoffmann (b. 1992) is an artist/photographer based in New York City. Hoffmann produces photographs that draw from cultural theory, historical reference, and myth. Working predominantly within the lens of time-space compression/attrition, Hoffmann o en utilizes techniques of blur and obfuscation.