With his enquriy Björn Holzweg proceeds on the path of wild animals into unknown scenery. Being discovered there, he brings back to daylight the stories of freedom fighters and revolutionists. That’s how he turns one’s gaze on past and present happenings that lie off the beaten track and far from everyday life. For him it’s not about communicating a concrete message – what kind of lesson one learns is up to oneself.
The artist was born in Leipzig in 1979 and since 2004 he’s been living and working in Hamburg. His art is shaped and formed in paintings, drawings, sculptures and watercolour-paintings.
The protagonists of his works are mostly wild animals or more likely: woodland animals.
In drawings he shows them powerful and dynamic while hunting. One sees the hunter – if bear, wolf or tiger – as a precise and lifelike pencil drawing. Whereas the prey appears as an undefined atmospheric play of colours without marking. In his sculptural works made of modelling material the animals are portrayed in heroic manner. They are freedom fighters with whom the artist practises the revolt. With them Björn Holzweg remembers the stories about revolutions and resistance fights, but at the same time turns one’s gaze towards the current fate of these animals. He ingeniously and formally assembles these different spheres of meaning: he assembles the surface of the sculptures with a complex net of precise triangles. Geometrical forms are a symbol of our society to the artist: calculating, repetitive and eternal. As such he illuminates the influence of these on the lifestyle of animals. And even when these live far away in wild forests their habitats are intensely moulded by the structures of human society. Björn Holzwegs works therefor remind one of an often forgotten, but in reality co-exsisting world that lies remote from urban living space.
Instagram @bjoern_holzweg
Selected Exhibitions
2020
-Apocalypse Now- Group Exhibition
Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg
-Quellengalerie- Group Exhibition
Wizeman, Stuttgart
2019
-Hands and Pants2- Group Exhibition
Faultline Art Space, Oakland California
-Stone.Hill.Church- Solo Exhibition
Paul Roosen Contemporary, Hamburg
-Make Peace let's Art- Group Exhibition
Warchild Art Festival Hamburg
2018
-Arts Program, Roller Coaster Installation
Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg
-Waterweek Festival
Los Angeles, California
-Art Lab Munich
Galerie Benjamin Eck, Munich
2017
-Knotenpunkt in Leipzig
Krudebude, Leipzig
-Amur- Solo Exhibition
Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg
-Knotenpunkt in Berlin- Group Exhibition
Urban Spree, Berlin
2016
-Zerberus- with Ki Yoon Ko and Elmar Lause
Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg
-Art.Fair Cologne- with Affenfaust Galerie
Koelnmesse, Cologne
-MenschTierWir- International Group Exhibition
Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg
-Widerkunst Festival- International Group Exhibition
Holzmarkt, Berlin
-Group Exhibition
Fonis Galerie, Düsseldorf
2015
-Knotenpunkt Festival 2015- International Group Exhibition
Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg
-The daily mood of Björn Holzweg- Solo Exhibition
Beinlich Contemporary, Bielefeld
-60 Jahre Kunst in Hamburg- Group Exhibition
Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg
-Neusicht Festival- International Group Exhibition
Neubad, Luzern
2014
-Knotenpunkt Festival 2014- International Group Exhibition
Kolbenhof, Hamburg
-Millerntor Gallery- International Group Exhibition
Millerntor Stadium, Hamburg
-Sherwood Forest- Solo Exhibition
Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg
2013
-Gumsenplü- with Nils Kasiske, Nils Knott, Patrick Farzar
Feinkunst Krüger, Hamburg
-Overtime- International Group Show
Heliumcowboy Artspace, Hamburg