Ottmar Hörl

Ottmar Hörl (* 1950 in Nauheim) is a German conceptual artist, sculptor, installation, action, photo and object artist. He first studied at the Städelschule Academy of Fine Arts in Frankfurt am Main from 1975 to 1979 and then at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts under Klaus Rinke from 1979 to 1981 with a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation.

In 1985, he founded the Formalhaut group with the architects Gabriela Seifert and Götz G. Stöckmann, with whom he designed the striking roofscape of the Gutleut government center with its colorful "little hats". In 1988, his works were shown at Vorsatz 2, the second major exhibition at Galerie Vorsetzen. At the beginning of the 1990s, Hörl was a visiting professor at Graz University of Technology. In 1997, he was awarded the COLOGNE FINE ART Prize. From 1999 to 2017, he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg, where he became president in 2005. On the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg in July 2012, Hörl received a special tribute from his students: 350 figurines of Hörl with two hares, alluding to his most famous work, the "Large Hare Piece", were made and set up under the motto "350 Presidents for the Academy". His works can be found in many collections and public spaces at home and abroad.

Hörl's artistic forms of expression are diverse and cannot be pinned down to a specific style. In his works, he deals with the aesthetics of everyday culture and defines the term sculpture as an organizational principle. He claims to have discovered this principle in his environment, in which, as is well known, many objects of daily use are standardized and normalized. Accordingly, he became known primarily through sculptures on themes of everyday life as well as large-scale projects with serial sculptures in public spaces, which are based on his specific definition of sculpture as an organizing principle.

(Source: Wikipedia)