Wolfgang Hahn (artist)

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Wolfgang Hahn: Figure in 2 parts , Bunter Garten, Mönchengladbach . Basalt lava , installed in 2002. 120 × 75 × 25 cm and 75 × 85 × 25 cm ( benches and figures )

Wolfgang Hahn (born April 26, 1953 in Anrath ) is a German draftsman and sculptor . His work explores the connections between drawing and sculpture.

Life

Wolfgang Hahn studied from 1973 to 1976 with Joachim Bandau at the University of Education in Aachen (since 1980 integrated into the RWTH Aachen ) and from 1976 to 1981 with Harry Kramer at the art academy in Kassel . With a scholarship from the DAAD he studied with Otto Piene at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge , Massachusetts from 1981 to 1982 . In 1985 Hahn was artist in residence at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston . From 1985 to 1988 he worked as an artistic assistant in the art department at the Kassel University of Applied Sciences (today as the Kassel Art Academy, a semi-autonomous department of the University of Kassel ). In 1992 he became artist in residence at Macomb College in Mount Clemens , Michigan .

Wolfgang Hahn is a member of the international artists' committee and the German Werkbund . He is married to the art historian Ulrike Lua and lives and works in Mönchengladbach .

plant

Wolfgang Hahn endeavors to develop the “missing link” in his art, the missing connection between drawing and sculpture. The first works created in the 1970s are hinged corrugated cardboard boxes in the form of human silhouettes, they "[...] play with the relationship between inside and outside, surfaces and volumes, positive and negative form and the connection between amorphous form and geometric edge."

Flycatcher and drawing apparatus

In the glue paintings of the early 1980s Hahn smeared the stretched canvases with a mixture of rosin , linseed oil and honey , so-called fly glue. From the initially monochrome surface, the accumulation of insects, dust and other particles, which were fixed on the surface for a certain period of time, "over time" formed the atmosphere of the room. After the glue has dried at the latest, the insects and air particles fall off, leaving only traces of the individual organic particles on the canvas. Drawings on Bristol board were made under the title Fly Catcher . In boxes, in which flies would collect and multiply over time, the cardboard box was loosely attached to the back wall and after a while recorded the traces of the flies.

Skate Board Drawing - Fakir
1982
Felt pen drawing,
28 cm × 37.9 cm
Private property;

linked image
(please note copyrights )

In 1982 he made skate board drawings, drawings made with an apparatus designed by the artist. Under a fixed, thick felt-tip pen, the drawing sheet was moved on a board that had been screwed onto a skateboard ; the felt pen could be put on and off the paper with a pedal. The artist described the experience of drawing with the board on rollers as a self-imposed handicap : “The movements of the board appear unmotivated, every mechanism has its own life. You try to outsmart the damn thing and finally you have to realize that you can't do it against the board. It reacts like an overloaded shopping cart in a supermarket. ”Hahn continues, the draftsman tries“ to coordinate the dynamics of the system with his own motor skills. Curves are to be planned carefully, pushing is better than pulling. Every new approach is cumbersome, therefore the movements are calm and deliberate, contours are drawn through in long journeys without interruptions. The sheets are very calculated. "

Lego figures and phantom sculptures

In the 1980s he created sculptures made of Lego bricks, whereby he illuminated some of these works, those made of transparent bricks, from the inside with black and white televisions in order to use the light and shadow effects generated to cancel out the rigid geometry of the figures. Since the late 1980s, Wolfgang Hahn has been developing so-called phantom sculptures . These are anaglyph images , consisting in drawings of parallel red and green lines that hardly reveal any shape. If you look at the drawings that Hahn always presents in the drawers of old paper cupboards through cardboard glasses, each with a red and a green “glass” made of foil, three-dimensional objects and figures appear that rise from the drawers and invite you to “with to run the hand through the sculpture and experience its spatiality almost physically and then, dissolving into nothingness, to let it disappear with the drawer in the wooden box ”.

Benches and figurines

Since 1995, Wolfgang Hahn has been producing seats and benches , usually made of basalt lava , which can be found both on private properties and in public spaces, for example in front of the Roman Museum in Haltern am See . The benches consist of 5 centimeter thick basalt lava plates that have been pegged, glued and dished . The benches and seats, like the sculptures made of Lego bricks based on the modular principle, are "to be viewed as autonomous works of art that obey the laws of constructive design, although they are characterized by their design and designation as simple seating".

Since around 2000, Wolfgang Hahn has also been designing figures that, like the benches and seats, were developed in basalt lava for the outside area, but were also made in paper, wood or steel in different formats. Occasionally they are designed as two-part ensembles. Recently created plywood figures, schematic human bodies, lose their two-dimensional appearance and form multi-layered sculptural forms that can be playfully built into one another like in a box system. The figures appear "as if they were composed of building blocks, geometric, angular, precise".

  • Basalt lava tomb, dimensions: H 102, W 48, D 12 cm, 2016 Krefeld main cemetery

  • Totenkopfhaus , basalt lava, 2015, 117 × 72 × 16 cm on a brick base, Mönchengladbach

  • Torso , basalt lava, 2001 75 × 112.5 × 100 cm, Mönchengladbach

Literature (selection)

  • Helge Draefz: Using simulation to dissuasion against simulation. On the work of Wolfgang Hahn . In: June. Magazine for culture & politics . 4th Vol. No. 1 1990, pp. 101-116
  • Armin Kaumanns: Construction kit. Portrait of Wolfgang Hahn . In: IHK Magazin 08.07. Business news from the Middle Lower Rhine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
  • Harry Kramer : On the "Flycatcher" project by Wolfgang Hahn . In: Atelier Kramer 1970–1985 . Catalog for the exhibition of the same name. Kunsthalle zu Kiel and Schleswig-Holstein Art Association, Kiel 1985, pp. 112, 113
  • Christian Krausch: Homo ludens . In: Wolfgang Hahn . Exhibition catalog, Städtisches Museum Schloss Rheydt 2000
  • Stephan Oettermann : Fly traps. Attempt to provide a historical commentary on the objects by Wolfgang Hahn. In: Prism . Journal of the Kassel University of Applied Sciences. No. 23, June 1980, pp. 76, 77
  • Heiner Scheepers: Wolfgang Hahn Phantom Sculptures . In: Kunstverein Lingen (Ed.): 13 in the Professorenhaus . Lingen 1998, pp. 36-38
  • Henry Wiencek: The World of LEGO Toys . New York 1987, pp. 121-124

Exhibitions (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bunter Garten Mönchengladbach: Art in the Park (accessed on October 20, 2018)
  2. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hahn , accessed on May 13, 2010
  3. ↑ Fly glue , accessed April 8, 2018
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Hahn: On the handicap as a stylistic device and the staged chance. Attempt a commentary font . In: Zeitschrift für Kunstpädagogik 6 (1983), pp. 52–56; P. 53. Quoted from: Helge Draefz: Per simulation for dissuasion against simulation. On the work of Wolfgang Hahn . In: Juni , Magazine for Culture & Politics, 4th vol. No. 1, 1990, pp. 101–116 PDF
  5. ↑ parallel action . Catalog for the exhibition of the Kunstverein SILIXEN eV, Bayreuth 2008, pp. 32–35 u. P. 71
  6. ↑ Illustration of red-green cardboard glasses ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Heiner Scheepers: Wolfgang Hahn Phantom Sculptures (1998) PDF
  8. ↑ Seats and Benches , accessed May 18, 2010
  9. ^ Christian Krausch: Homo ludens (2000) PDF
  10. ↑ Development of a figure in two parts , accessed on May 18, 2010
  11. ^ Dorothee Krings: On the way in distant artist galaxies . In: Welt am Sonntag No. 38, September 19, 2004 PDF
  12. ^ Announcement on the exhibition , accessed on September 8, 2014.
  13. ↑ exhibitions
personal data
SURNAME Hahn, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Anrath