ZURICH.- Galerie Gmurzynska is presenting the opening of Peinture Trouvée, a solo exhibition by Hubertus Hohenlohe, whose latest body of work redefines the boundaries between photography, object, and painting. On view in Zurich through the end of January, the show invites viewers to enter a world where images are not made, but found.
Hohenlohe’s practice begins where most creative processes end: with the discarded, the overlooked, the thrown-away. From crumpled paper fragments and weather-creased posters to forgotten fabrics lying dormant in urban corners, the artist isolates these accidental formations and transforms them into compositions of striking texture, form, and unexpected color. Operating in the tradition of Objet Trouvé, he does not so much create as he uncovers—revealing the beauty that time, chance, and abandonment have already inscribed.
This approach places Hohenlohe in a lineage that stretches back to Kurt Schwitters, who, in the wake of a fractured postwar world, sought to assemble new meaning from the remnants of material debris. Just as Schwitters’ Merz works elevated discarded matter into poetic structure, Hohenlohe’s Peinture Trouvée recasts the humble and the neglected as sites of revelation. His images echo Schwitters’ conviction that a fragmented world can be reimagined—not by erasing its fractures, but by transforming them into new forms of coherence and hope.
In Hohenlohe’s hands, every abandoned object becomes a portal: a reminder that painting can be discovered in the wild, waiting to be recognized rather than invented. The result is a quiet yet powerful meditation on perception, value, and the hidden aesthetics of everyday life.
Hubertus von Hohenlohe (b. 1959) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans photography, design, performance, and media. Born a Prince in the Hohenlohe-Langenburg family and educated in philosophy and economics at the University of Graz, Austria, Hohenlohe’s creative career defies easy categorization, marked by a restless curiosity and an eye for the unexpected.
His career in photography began with album cover shoots for major international record labels including BMG, EMI, and Universal. From there, he developed a distinctive visual language that fuses street photography, pop aesthetics, and self-reflection, often inserting himself into urban scenes as a playful yet poignant observer of contemporary life.
Hohenlohe’s extensive list of solo exhibitions spans prestigious venues across Europe and the Americas, including the Belvedere Museum in Vienna (The Perfect Tourist, 2012), the National Museum of Hungary (Bhuda Pop Pest, 2011), Leika Galleries in Munich and Salzburg, and more recently, Fundación Cajasol in Seville (Fama Everybody, 2023) and Claustro de Bramante in Rome (Pop the City, 2023). His works have also been showcased in Marbella, Málaga, Düsseldorf, Chicago, Paris, Bratislava, Hamburg, and Aspen.
A true polymath, Hohenlohe has also made his mark in the worlds of fashion and design. As a designer for Kappa, he created the official sportswear for the Mexican Olympic team at the Winter Games in 2010, 2014, and 2022. His creative versatility led to collaborations with luxury and lifestyle brands such as Leica—who designed a custom camera model exclusively for him—and Jaeger-LeCoultre, for whom he created a personalized watch featuring one of his artworks. He also designed a signature luggage line for the Italian brand Mandarina Duck.
For a decade, Hohenlohe partnered with Red Bull as the presenter and creator of a multimedia program dedicated to art, lifestyle, and music. His long-standing collaboration with Leica, beginning in 2007, reflects his ongoing exploration of photographic innovation and narrative.
