The tricks that Hans Stofer pulls are magical ones, reinventing the world of things to expose their poetic beauty, fabricating object-montages that resonate with sensory and imaginative fantasy. The objects are like exotic hybrid plants that thrive outside the decadent hothouse of inbred pre-conceptions made up of the materials and methods of post-industrial homo faber. They are entirely of the contemporary world in their challenge to, and examination of, the everyday commodity world of useful and useless things with which we equip and adorn our bodies. In order to re-examine that world, we need to enter the paradoxical space of Hans Stofer's design wilderness, where as artificer of materialization, his objects propagate and lure us into re-imagining the world of things.
Linda Sandino
Hans Stofer's work is witty and engaging. His jewellery particularly brings a breath of fresh air to personal adornment with its openness to the gender of who might wear the work. But there is also a sting in the tail with most of his pieces as the artist questions our traditional cultural values. This thinking is not dissimilar to that of DADA - the irreverent anti-art movement which flourished earlier in the century. Interestingly this irrational spirit in arts was also born in Zurich.
Ralph Turner
