15 minutes of fame

Fundación Unicaja, Málaga

The Unicaja Foundation presented last september 2022, the exhibition of the photographer Hubertus von Hohenlohe; An atypical artist, Hubertus is a man of action with a trajectory that leads him to contemplate the world from a singular perspective. Curated by Isolina Arbulu.


As the painter Hernán Cortés, a great friend of the photographer, emphasises; Hubertus has so much of the world that he does not need to interpret it but makes it his own through its obsessive appearance in his own works. For years Hubertus has been incorporating his image, his imprint, into his compositions as another element that shapes the narcissism of his work. He achieves snapshots of extraordinary vigour, a world of reflections with which he constantly plays, as if to tell us that everything is an illusion, that everything is a reflection of an image in another image.

Under the name 15 minutes of fame, the exhibition presents 50 large-format photographs that represent a journey through the vibrant urban colours, fame, advertising messages and war cries that invade our space. The artist travels the world with his camera, capturing moments with apparent spontaneity and at the same time with a certain flavour of covert advertising that makes his work captivating and attractive. Through a complex layering of layers, Hubertus' work takes the pulse of the contemporary 21st century city in a mixture of reality and fiction, the public and the private.

His recognisable selfies are precursors of the narcissism that has flooded our lives through social media, Hubertus blatantly and almost arrogantly infiltrates his photographs, being both spectator and protagonist at the same time, an uninvited voyeur who sneaks into his own party. As the artist himself comments, he creates small advertisements informing of his presence in this market called life. His way of capturing the moment, not devoid of romanticism, is juxtaposed with a markedly cheerful and informal aesthetic characteristic of the artist. Hubertus successfully blends intuition and careful post-production work, resulting in a work that is totally playful, fresh and different.

September 1, 2022