Drawing on a wide range of sources—from German history and Greek drama to European auteur filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini—Lothar Hempel is known for his stage set-like installations populated by life size cut out figures. Hempel, a former DJ who went to art school in Dusseldorf, Germany in the late 1980s, also creates films, line drawings, and paintings that employ vintage-looking images appropriated from magazines and film. Removed from their original context and collaged into abstract compositions that resemble works of modern art, Hempel’s figures often convey a sense of unplaceable nostalgia. His sculptures and paintings call to mind an alternative history—of art, and of the world—with its own cultic symbolism, and whose characters remain vaguely recognizable to contemporary viewers.

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