Ana Hoffner is an artist, writer, researcher and performer. She pursues artistic research in the tradition of conceptual art, developes form through thought, and writes about art. Her research interests are the politics of gender and sexuality, temporality in contemporary art, psychoanalysis and affect theory, antisemitism and migration in visual cultural studies, and critical theory.
Her recent solo exhibitions include institutions such as Kunstverein Braunschweig, Kunsthalle Vienna, Museum of Contemporary Art Podgorica, recent group exhibitions include Biennale Jogja, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, City of Women Ljubljana, Taxispalais Innsbruck, The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška (KGLU), Austrian Cultural Forum Warsaw, Framer Framed Amsterdam, Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien Berlin, Kunstraum Innsbruck, tranzit.sk Bratislava, Museum of Contemporary Art Banja Luka, Freud Museum Vienna, VOX centre de l’image contemporaine Montreal, Bosnian National Gallery Sarajevo, LACE Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Künstlerhaus Graz (steirischer herbst), Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, Secession Vienna, Salzburger Kunstverein. Screenings include mumok cinema Vienna, Sinema Transtopia Berlin, Blicke Kino/Belvedere 21er Haus Vienna, Videoex Festival Zurich, Sinop International Biennial “Sinopale 4”, Brussels Women’s Film Festival, Internationales FrauenFilmFestival Köln, Feminist and Lesbian Film Festival Paris etc.
Since 2011 Hoffner has taught arts-based research practice and art theory at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, University Innsbruck, University Mozarteum Salzburg, University of Art Braunschweig, ZHdK Zürich and a.pass (Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies) Brussels. In 2019 she was Visiting Scholar at The New School, New York City. From 2020 to 2025 she was Professor for Artistic Research at the University Mozarteum Salzburg where she co-developed the PhD in the Arts, a transdisciplinary doctoral program for artists.
Her monograph Antisemitism, Homophobia and Contemporary Art will be published by Routledge in 2025. Contemporary Unconscious, a catalogue of selected art-based research projects, including texts by Sara Reisman and Marlene Riegler, was published by Sternberg Press in 2023, and The Queerness of Memorywas published by b_books (Berlin) in 2018.
Ana Hoffner was born in Yugoslavia in 1980 and migrated to Austria in 1989. She received Austrian citizenship in 2002 and changed her name to Hoffner (previous Prvulović), a short version of German ‘Hoffnung’, which means hope.
