The life of Basel-based artist Hanspeter Hofmann seems to be a romantic artist’s biography: trained as a natural scientist, he turned to quasi-alchemical experimentations as processes of form-finding, and to printing techniques for grounding his pictorial work. Seen from another angle, Hofmann also refers to the visual clichés of the consumer culture industry as they are represented in mass media, and recontextualizes its icons. Bonheur Automatique makes evident this contiguity of meaning and work in Hofmann’s artistic strategy. Both an artist’s book and a catalogue raisonné of his prints, this publication recreates on offset plates the construction of images in his work and documents the development of his oeuvre and themes. Published with the Kunsthaus Graz and the Villa Arson, Nice.