Herbert Hofer’s “Million Dollar” Miami View
If you’ve never had the privilege of coming across any of Herbert Hofer’s paintings, put some time aside to check them out; you won’t be disappointed. He uses common societal themes, impregnates them frequently with cats, and somehow draws it all together in a surreal network of color and odd perspectives, extreme vanishing points, and general positive weirdness. Referring to his works as “modern primitives,” his art conveys a dreamy, childhood feel, even if it’s Sloppy Joe’s Bar, with drunken cats lying in the street. After more than 20,000 career paintings, he has yet to paint something abrasive to the eye. They all seem liquid, fun. We search for uniqueness in art, and his style is truly one-of-a-kind. An Austrian native, we caught up with Herbert in his current turf of sunny Miami Beach, and he educated us on what we must at this time admit is a cool, smooth, inspirational career.
The beauty is I get up in the morning, walk by my table and see something and start, and then I look and go “oh, two hrs passed again…” I had a cat for 18 years and she was the star poster 99 Miami Beach Festival of Arts, Relay for Life, Absolute Vodka, Cat Network, and she has been in the last ten thousands paintings. Throughout my career I’ve made over 20,000. There was always a black cat/white cat interaction in many of the paintings and after a while my collectors knew that that was me and my wife since she’s African-American. Only my collectors knew the whole storytelling behind it. It was fun; I lived in my paintings, in my little jungle. I love tropical places.
As an Austrian, Why did you decide to settle down in Miami Beach?
People called us pioneers because we came here in ’88 when it was a slum. Just like the industrial revolution of the 1900’s, Miami was pushed into the digital revolution; people don’t need to have an office in New York or Chicago anymore:, they can be on a penthouse or boat in south Florida. I call it now the “New Atlantis,” this is really what’s happening here. You have people from all over the world coming here: Europeans, south Americans, Asians–from everywhere–and you maybe have in Miami still a problem of less-educated people who fight each other, but world travelers meet in Miami beach for many reasons. They sit in the news café with people from all over the world. Some of them don’t know where Miami is but they know the News Café, and you sit next to someone who’s wearing blue jeans doing a million-dollar deal on their cell phone. It’s totally incredible, what happened here.
Who are you, what you do, and where are you from?
I’m Austrian and at age 22 I left Austria to venture in the world. By trade, I’m an architect. I worked one year in Austria and because of the political situation; the other party took over and fired all the young architects. I was disappointed with the world so I left and was ready to live a hippie life, and adventurer’s life. People used to call me “The Aristocrat Hippie” because I always had clean fingernails, you know? (laughs) That was fun. I lived in a certain style. From there I went to Germany, England, North Africa, and South Africa. I wanted to go to Istanbul and Israel because there were so many beautiful girls and when you’re young this is what’s attractive to you. As a stowaway from Morocco to Istanbul on a ship, my journey began. The ship landed in a completely different place and I was thrown out because they all got arrested smuggling hashish. I stood on the Autostrata in Naples with ten dollars. Finally I hitchhiked to Rome and landed in the middle of the night and walked to the city center. Standing there in the heart of Rome as the sun rose, I thought, “This is beautiful…” and I wanted to stay there for two weeks at least, but became twenty years. One day I saw a man painting so I took out my ballpoint pen and a piece of paper and began to draw the church. Someone bought it, and eventually people called me “L’artista!” I had never had a brush in my hand so I picked some up, got some paints, and started painting in the street, getting paid, and even had an audience with the pope. I have art in the Vatican gallery and started working as a stuntman for a spaghetti western. After several roles I became somewhat of an actor working with Fellini, Robert De Niro, Sergio Leone, and then got carried away to Greek television. I worked in Greece, 50 films in greek language as lead actor on television films. I was a self-taught painter and actor, and since I had a passport—which few people did at the time—I would get calls telling me to go to the airport Monday because I was needed for a film in Hong Kong. I would go there, shoot a movie for two weeks, and then stay there for three months. Then I’d go to Singapore and Indonesia and paint, and I always came back with an exhibition wherever I was.
How did you manage to get these exhibitions?
Well Austria is such a small country, when I went somewhere else I’d go to the Austrian embassy and say, “Put me on the mailing list; I’m an artist.” They would already be familiar with me from internal writings and I would go to other embassies as well, like the Greek embassy, for example, since I was a TV star in Greece. I would hold a “throwaway” exhibition in the villa I rented and by the time I got around to all the embassies I had nine ambassadors, their friends, their wives…I even wrote the mayor, presented a painting and said, “thank you for the hospitality”. I had my next exhibition in Washington DC and met the president of Indonesia while there. Some of the places I went to were much safer back then. You can’t go to the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Egypt, Iraq, or Iran and do what I did with as much ease anymore.
When you grow older, things change. The third world, as adventurous as it was, became the fourth world. As an artist, I’m on the front lines of business. My sales depend on whether or not people can afford luxury items. Nowadays, people need gas, need food…all the things that are more important. Because of my lifestyle, my career, my affinity for travel, I found myself being sent to certain areas of the world to analyze the political climate.
Category: ART, Beating the 9-5, BUSINESS, FEATURED, Interviews
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