It could be said that the Mendoza Eduardo Hoffmann It has that adventurous spirit, that capable of climbing indomitable mountains driven as a kite by the crazy wind zonda. But, it is not one of those who throw itself without a network to the tides of life. On the contrary. He has that refined smell that allows him to dive in a selective mode for the framework of the exquisite world of the arts, and flirt with all, leaving the mark of his unique brushstroke. Perhaps it is because of that aura of brotherhood that knew when rugby was its primary passion. And it was of that sport so virile, sometimes as brutal as Cortés, of which he knew how to transmute that passion that dominated it, to that inherited DNA with which he communed daily, and that connected it directly to the beauty of the artist. A life that aspired, without knowing it, more than the same art that dominates. That great unconformity of art that at age 14 began to paint and three years later he began his studies at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Cuyo, with Zravko Ducmelic. And then he moved to Paris where he established a internship next to Julio Le Parc. His artistic tour led him to share different artistic proposals with references from different disciplines and has participated in the main art fairs in the world: Fiac, Art Basel, Art Chicago , Art Miami, Arteba, Arco Madrid, Beirut Art Fair and Sotheby’s Latin American Painting, among others, and whose works have won outstanding awards International where many, are already part of important collections in Argentina and abroad as of the Winy-Bemberg family, the Amalia Fortabat collection, of Queen Máxima de Holland, of the Rudoph Spölberg family in Brussels, by Tony Chi or Donald Sutherland , among others. Your last exhibition, “Everyone wants my mountain”was inaugurated at the Ugallery of the University of Congress and was cured by two Mendoza: Javier Segura and Silvia Mechulán.
News: The painting was not his first love. In the hand of this artist, in addition to a brush before there was an oval ball. His could be “the story of the rugby player who triumphs through his art.”
Eduardo Hoffmann: It’s true! I loved playing rugby. It was my passion. A prolonged vice through the lineage, with my son Amancio, who began the URBA Youth Tournament and that I follow every weekend. But at my 14 years I began to notice that when I demanded it failed in training. They discovered a disease called talaasemia, which is congenital and is a deformation of the blood cells. They told me it was very dangerous to play rugby. That day I got home destroyed. After the diagnosis I was in bed time and my mother had left me some pencils and a block of leaves to draw. And I began to draw an aunt of mine who took care of me. I had always liked to draw. He was not a virtuoso, but yes, a great volunteer.
News: And how did the painting end up dominating the life of rugbier?
Hoffmann: My grandmother knew Manuel Zorrilla, an important painter and cartoonist and showed her some of mine. Somehow it began to be like the concealer of my work. It was quite strict and methodical. He made me draw animals in the zoo, but I could never make a nude, because at fifteen they took me to my bags if I tried to get a model. One day during a family lunch humiliated me because he told me that, if I couldn’t do naked, being an artist was not a career for me. Then my aunt baby, who was very pretty, told me: “I’m going to pose you so that this stupid old man stays quiet.” When I arrived at the Faculty I had 50 nudes of my aunt in the folder. The professor called the whole class and said: “We are facing an artist.” There I realized that all the passion I had once put to rugby was putting her into an artist. I liked the artist’s life more than the same art.
News: When did you decide that art was not going to be a hobby but a career?
Hoffmann: It was complex. I stayed outside a social tribe because rugby allowed you women, friends, “healthy life” and not a life of “hippie drug addict”, which was the least they told me when I was talking about being an artist. But I won, and soon everyone was proud of my decision.
News: He had two teachers along his way. At the University of Zdravko Ducmelic a Croatian and then to Julio Le Parc in Paris. What did you acquire about each one?
Hoffmann: There is a common denominator in all three, and here I include myself, which is passion. The three have had a passion, and that is the one that led me throughout my life to go, discovering. From Ducmelic it could be said that I acquired love delivered in time to painting. And with Julio Le Parc a very good relationship was generated. I made a kind of industrial assistance. It was like doing a master’s degree in a university. I liked Julio Le Parc, from how he was going to the youngest students, how he attended the phone, or how his humor was.
News: Why didn’t he stay in Europe?
Hoffmann: I had a four -year -old daughter, Joselina, in Argentina and had not seen her. He had been from that “life of Bohemia” in Europe for two years. I began to terribly notice the absence of that daughter who now gave me two grandchildren, Augusto (12) and Vicente (9). I fell into a depression that I even thought it was AIDS, because it weighed 57 kilos. And an opportunity arose in Argentina and hit the return.
News: You commune with all the arts. He does works with music, paints fabrics for women’s clothes, paints on live bodies, he has tags for wine. It is like a street Happening.
Hoffmann. It’s true! The multiplicity of the arts. Now I am doing a rugby shirt for the guinea pigs, which is an integrating rugby team for boys with differences in Mendoza, also an alternative for the Newman club team and for a polo club. Now with artificial intelligence you can do anything. You start an idea and don’t know where you can end.
News: He likes to play with the chiaroscuros. What clearing did it have in life and art?
Hoffmann: I have a lot of rot of the darkness of my life. I think pain and suffering is very personal. But at the same time life gets on your side when you have to go through great pain.
News: What catches your art?
Hoffmann: That when I look in the mirror every day I already look more like my father than me. I don’t look like me anymore. However, looking at work is a young mirror. And does not have Botox or Lifting. It is younger than when I started painting. Perhaps due to the lack of fears, because it is freer, more scoundrel. I am a trial and error essayist: a magician who does not reveal his tricks.
News: Where would you like there to be a picture of yours?
Hoffman: In the MoMA. I am very ambitious: I am like a horse that starts fourth and runs to arrive among the former.
News: The last Renaissance artist’s project …
Hoffmann: A winery, hotel, restaurant, gallery. Obviously in Agrelo, Mendoza. It is a project that we are doing with my ex -wife who is an architect. We did all the design as if they were the old barrels and barrels. Everything is thought and designed and we begin the work to inaugurate 2026. A big dream.
