Paris+ par Art Basel 2023

Grand Palais Éphémère

Second edition of Paris+ par Art Basel

Opening Hours

VIP days | Wednesday, 18. October 2023 | 10am – 4pm,

First Choice VIP Cardholders

Wednesday, 18. October 2023 | 4pm – 8pm,

First Choice & Preview VIP Cardholders

Thursday, 19.October 2023 | 11am – 4pm, First Choice,

Preview and One Day VIP Cardholders

Vernissage day | Thursday, 19.October 2023 | 4pm – 8pm,

Vernissage Cardholders

Public days

Friday, 20. October 2023 | 11am – 9pm

Saturday, 21. October2023 | 11am – 8pm

Sunday, 22.October 2023 | 11am – 7pm

20 – 22 October 2023

Grand Palais Éphémère, 2 place Joffre, 75007, Paris

https://parisplus.artbasel.com/

Paris+ par Art Basel

Citywidepublic program, which will run concurrently tothe fair’s second edition. Freely accessible to the public, the program comprisesthree exhibitions, two monumentaloutdoor installations, and aseries of talks and debates, presented in six iconic locationsacross the city. They include the Jardin des Tuileries –Domaine national du Louvre, the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris,and the Place Vendôme–all of which already hosted projects in 2022–as well as three new venues: the parvis de l’Institut de France, the Palais d’Iéna,and the Centre Pompidou, which will welcomethe show’s Conversations program. Paris+ par Art Basel will therefore further expand its offering and footprint in the French capital, as well as its collaborations with local cultural institutions and the City of Paris.

Clément Delépine, Director of Paris+ par Art Basel, says: ‘I am delighted that with three new venues, we were able to significantly bolster the public program of Paris+ par Art Basel’s upcoming edition. The fruitful institutional partnerships we put in place and the ambitious proposal resulting from them are defining features of our show in the French capital. With Paris+ par Art Basel’s 2023 public program, Parisians and visitors from out of town will be able to experience thought-provoking art and engaging discourse in the context of historical, if not legendary,locations.’

Exhibition at Jardin des Tuileries–Domaine national du Louvre

Organized in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and curated for the second year by Annabelle Ténèze, presently Director of Les Abattoirs, Musée -Frac OccitanieToulouseand incoming Director of the Louvre-Lens Museum, anexhibitionof public artworkswill unfold across theTuileries Garden, in the center of Paris. Titled‘La cinquième saison (The fifth season)’, itdraws from Ténèze’s 2022 Tuileries show ‘La Suite de l’Histoire’(‘The Aftermath of History’) and explores the garden as a place where water, plant, mineral, and animal life coexist. Theworks on view underline our interdependence with the living world and question the ways we interactwith nature; they questionhow together with itsinhabitants, we can shapethe’aftermath of history’.

Participating artists include Joël Andrianomearisoa, Meriem Bennani, Jacqueline de Jong, Vojtech Kovarik, Zanele Muholi, Jean Prouvé & Pierre Jeanneret,and Claudia Wieser. Severalartists chose to produce new work especially for the occasion.

Annabelle Ténèzesays: ‘I am happy to propose an exhibition that brings together artists whoconsider their works“living objects”, objects that are touched by life. They address not only the marks we leave onnature, but also those nature leaves on us. The environment and how we cohabit with theprotagonistsof our “terrestrial community”are fundamental to these artists’ practices; they hence invite us to look and listen to the movements of the garden and its inhabitants in subtle yet innovative ways.’

Musée du Louvre

Paris+ par Art Basel on the parvis de l’Institutde France

A monumental sculpture by American artist Sheila Hicks will be presented on the parvis de l’Institut de France, located in front of the Pont des Arts and the Institut de France, a 17th-century building hosting five French academies, including the Académie Française. Hicks’ work VERS DE HORIZONS NOUVEAUX(2023) is a six-meters-high column covered in multicolored strands of sustainable, waterproof textile; the sculpture’s bright chromatic palette willbe indialog with the muted tones of the surrounding buildings. The artist, who has been living and working in Paris since 1964, is known for her vibrant and often sprawling installations predominantly made of fabric, a material she celebrates as an endless source of possibilities and an antidote to rigid artistic classification.

The project is presented by galerie frank elbaz(Paris), in collaboration with Meyer Riegger (Berlin, Karlsruhe) and MassimoMinini (Brescia).

Paris+ par Art Basel at Palais d’Iéna

The exhibition in the museum spaces of the Palais d’Iéna brings together two artists with exceptional careers, Michelangelo Pistoletto (Biella, Italy, 1933) and Daniel Buren (Boulogne-Billancourt, France, 1938), who have exhibited in major cultural institutions and galleries across the world. The project, led by art historian Matthieu Poirierand supported by Galleria Continua(San Gimignano, Pékin, Boissy-le-Châtel, Dubai, La Havane, Paris, Rome, São Paulo), will be fully revealed inOctober. The exhibition will bring together elements conceived and realized in response tothe specificitiesof the Palais d’Iéna, built by Auguste Perret in 1937: its monumental spaces, the subtle polychromy of its raw concrete, its singular luminosity, its urban surroundings, its perspectives and various levels, and its complex symmetry.

Since the 1960s, Daniel Buren has been exploring the relationship between motif and support, as well as form and context. This led him to choose fixed vertical stripes 8.7 cmwide, alternating white with another color, as his exclusive motif, based on an industrial fabric pattern. Starting from this neutral visual register, Buren further impoverished it by systematically repeating it to achieve a ‘zero degree’of painting. From 1967 onwards, he worked in situ, i.e., making this ‘visual tool’of stripes interact with the context in which it is displayed, whether natural or man-made (street, gallery, museum, landscape and architecture).

In the mid-1950s, Michelangelo Pistoletto began a pictorial exploration of the self-portrait, followed by the monochrome, using metallic paints. Around 1961-62, this exploration was synthesized, resulting in mirrored paintings, created by collaging a one-size-fits-all image on a polished metal plate. These works offer the viewer both a (fixed) image and a (fleeting) reflection of themselves and the surrounding space. The artist hence inverts the Renaissance perspective and conjures an idea of art in vivo, as a unique, lived experience of real space and time. These ideas are developed in various ways in his equally seminal, 1965-66 work ‘Ogetti in meno'(‘Objects in less’) andconstitute a key moment in Arte Povera.

Matthieu Poiriersays: ‘I like the idea that the solemnity of architecture can be shaken up by the combined interventions of Pistoletto and Buren, that the works invite visitors to experiment together, to see each other and even to engage in dialogue.’

The project is realized incollaboration with the Palais d’Iéna, seat of the Economic, Social, and Environmental Council (ESEC).

Paris+ par Art Basel at Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris

The 17th-century chapel of the Beaux-Arts de Pariswill host an exhibition by British artist Jessica Warboys, exploringthe overlap between man-made culture and nature. Titled ‘THIS TAIL GROWS AMONG RUINS’, it will combinea multichannel video and sound installation with a large collage of unstretched paintings. Warboys makes these by following a unique process: She brushes the canvas with beeswax, immerses it in wild bodies of water, and then sprinkles it with mineral pigments on the shores. In her eponymous video work, the artist stages the journey of a candle through various sites where nature and culture intersect, from the Biblioteca Joanina in Coimbra, Portugal –home to a colony of bats that protect its precious manuscripts from insects –to the pine forest surrounding the Arvo PärtCenter in Laulasmaa, Estonia. The video is accompanied by a soundtrack using the amplified sounds of bats, composed by Morten Norbye Halvorsen. The projectis presented by Gaudel de Stampa (Paris).

Paris+ par Art Basel at the Place Vendôme

A work by Swiss artist Urs Fischer will be exhibited on the Place Vendôme.TitledWave(2018), it is a five-meter-high aluminum sculpture, based on a mound of clay that was pressed, kneaded, and squeezed by the artist. The piece of clay, bearing the marks of Fischer’s hands, was then enlarged, magnifying the tactile details left on the material.

The work, whichresembles a sweltering, glistening wave, reflectsthe artist’s interestin materiality,scale,and contextual ambiguity. Thestraightforward process behind the original model of ‘Wave’is intentionally atodds with itsmonumental scale,shininess, and placement ona square known for its majestic feel. The projectis presented by Gagosian(New York, Basel, London, Los Angeles, Geneva, Hong Kong, Paris, Rome, Basel, Gstaad, Athens).

The applications to present artworks as part of the public program were open to all galleries, irrespective of their participation in Paris+ par Art Basel.

From October 19to 22, students from the École du Louvre will be present at all locations featuring artworks to provide visitors with information.

Paris+ par Art Basel Conversations in collaboration

with theCentre PompidouThisyear’s Conversations program will be realized in collaboration with the Centre Pompidouand take place in itsRenzo Piano-and Richard Rogers-designed building, located in the heart of the Marais. Curated for the second year by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou, Conversationswill comprisenine talks investigating contemporary cultural discourse. The program will celebrateavant-garde figures such as Chantal Akermanand Antonin Artaud; explore the intersection between art collecting and fashion; shed light onpurveyors of contemporary myths, from the Walt Disney Studios todrag culture; explore the connections between Paris, the Maghreb,andthe Caribbean; and feature known formats from Art Basel’s Conversations programs, such as the Premiere Artist Talk and The Artist and The Collector.

Running October 19to21, Conversations is free to the public.

The program will be held in English and French withsimultaneous translation.

PALAIS DE TOKYO

Hello, my name is Lili and we are many

Lili Reynaud-Dewar

VERNISSAGE: LE MERCREDI 18 OCTOBRE 2023 DE 18H À 21H

OPENING: WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18, 2023 | 6 – 9 PM

Curator François Piron

EXHIBITION: 19/10/2023 – 07/01/2024

https://palaisdetokyo.com/en/exposition/salut-je-mappelle-lili-et-nous-sommes-plusieurs/

Lili Reynaud-Dewar films, writes, speaks, dances, teaches, investigates, works with her friends, her family, her students. At the Palais de Tokyo, she questions the function of the artist, this hard-to-shape activity with blurred contours, both privileged and precarious, that acts between the exposure of private life and the subjectification of public life.

Her exhibition is divided into two parts. The first, open to the public, features the 19 episodes of a comedy between fiction and documentary: Gruppo Petrolio. Produced collectively and inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s book Pétrole, this film evokes the evils of the oil industry, technological progress and gentrification, and questions the value of artistic production in the face of political activism.

The second exhibition reads like a diary, that of the artist herself, and reports, through new bodies of work, what happened inside and outside the Palais de Tokyo (in hotel rooms in Paris, in the emotional and professional relationships of the artist, in national and international news) during the time interval which separated the first intuitions from the final result, that is to say the exhibition.

Doppelganger !

Jakob Lena Knebl & Ashley Hans Scheirl

VERNISSAGE: LE MERCREDI 18 OCTOBRE 2023 DE 18H À 21H

OPENING: WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18, 2023 | 6 – 9 pm

Curator Daria de Beauvais

EXHIBITION: 19/10/2023 – 07/01/2024

Open 12h-21h

https://palaisdetokyo.com/en/exposition/doppelganger/

#AshleyHansScheirl #JakobLenaKnebl

#TransmedialeKunst

Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl’s exhibition takes the form of diverse installations, islands of light that invite the public to explore “spaces of desire”, in their words. They create an immersive setting with carpets and mirrors through which the visitors become part of the show. The scenography draws on the codes of art, design, literature and socio-cultural phenomena while tending towards the humorous and the grotesque. The installations presented confuse values, they generate a series of tensions and affects that lend the most recognisable of their sources of inspiration an uncanny effect that is both unsettling and intriguing.

“Our exhibition takes place in the brutalist lower level of the Palais de Tokyo.

Rough concrete, gloomy corners, inextricable interlacings and bracings at walls and ceilings and numerous columns lend a background to staging our works. The cellar evokes the subconsciousness of a building. A liminal place, a heterotopia that can be associated with sub- and countercultures. We turn the basement of the building into an uncanny scenery for the ghosts of the Palais and its visitors.”

References from Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace to Barbapapa, Hans Bellmer to Luigi Colani, Hector Guimard1 to contemporary cyber aesthetics are interwoven to create protean works and beings, whose transmorphism pushes back the boundaries of good taste and representations of identity. The artists enter into a dialogue with each other based on the prefix “trans”: transmedium, transgenre, transmateriality, transcontext – a playful interchange between contemporary creation and the history of art and design, deconstructing the idea of identity as a whole: from mannerism to surrealism, from dark romanticism to biomorphism, and from modernism to postmodernism, opening onto a future of cybernetic existence.

The exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo follows the duo’s participation in the 15th Lyon Biennale (2019), curated by the Palais de Tokyo curatorial team. Their project was a humorous take on queer identities and utopias in the context of consumer society. The artists represented Austria at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), with a polymorphous installation inviting visitors to enter their entertaining and sensual world. Both projects drew on the aesthetics of the 70s, a decade marked by sexual liberation and important social movements which had a growing effect until now.

Vaisseau infini

Dalila Dalléas Bouzar

VERNISSAGE: LE MERCREDI 18 OCTOBRE 2023 DE 18H À 21H

OPENING: WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18, 2023 | 6 TO 9 PM

EXHIBITION: 19/10/2023 – 07/01/2024

Open 12h-21h

https://palaisdetokyo.com/en/exposition/vaisseau-infini/

Laureate of the SAM 2021 prize, Dalila Dalléas Bouzar presents Vaisseau infini [Infinite Vessel], a monumental work of embroidery created in Tlemcen in collaboration with Algerian craftspeople, both amateur and professional.

At the Palais de Tokyo, Vaisseau infini unfolds in the form of a vast tent which welcomes the public for a range of events. The embroidered patterns are based on a series of drawings created by the artist at Tassili N’Ajjer, a rocky plateau in the Saharan desert in southern Algeria. On this site, over several millennia at the Neolithic Age, people traced out their history and depicted their environment on stone cliffs, transforming the plateau into a unique, open-air record of human history, the relationships between people and animals, ways of life, and representations of gender and sexuality. Dalila Dalléas Bouzar sees in these ancient drawings and carvings the representation of a utopia: the distant past from which they emerge constitutes for her a continuum capable of transporting us towards an infinite future, beyond the domination and oppression that have marked Algeria’s recent history.

A dreamlike, intimate and ritualistic space, the tent of Vaisseau infini instills an atmosphere conducive to attention and meditation: visitors are invited to listen to podcasts produced by Hajer Ben Boubaker (Vintage Arab), as well as a sound work by Paloma Colombe. Throughout the autumn, philosophers, artists and historians will give readings and share stories with the public.

Hors de la nuit des normes,

hors de l’énorme ennui

VERNISSAGE: LE MERCREDI 18 OCTOBRE 2023 DE 18H À 21H

OPENING: WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18, 2023 | 6 – 9 pm

Artists Linga Acácio, Gloria Anzaldúa, Phoenix Atala, Jimmy Beauquesne, Cécile Bouffard, Lia D. Castro, Clay Chénière, Cerith Wyn Evans, Ndayé Kouagou, Kang Seung Lee, José Leonilson, Aurélien Potier, Jeanne Jacob, Tony Colombe. K, Rafael Moreno, Rafael RG, Agnès Varda, Myriam Ziehli, ana·mona servo / Les Éditions PanPan CulCul, MLF/Vanille/Fraise, groupe de lesbiennes politiques.

Curators Valentina d’Avenia and Clément Raveu

EXHIBITION: 19/10/2023 – 07/01/2024

Open 12h-21h

https://palaisdetokyo.com/en/exposition/hors-de-la-nuit-des-normes-hors-de-lenorme-ennui/

Through multiple and politically engaged practices, the exhibition Hors de la nuit des normes, hors de l’énorme ennui envisages plural visions of love and friendship, of romance and desire. It brings together twenty artists and collective who, working outwards from the margins, seek to think through the recomposition of affects and conflicts, interpersonal ties and collective creation in the present.

Rather than aiming to define and circumscribe the contours of an ongoing social and political shift, Hors de la nuit des normes, hors de l’énorme ennui cultivates its multiple expressions and its elusive character. The exhibition weaves together works of art, archives, and contemporary and historical fictions through which the multiplicity and hybridity of ways of loving and working can be felt.

It borrows its title from a slogan that appeared on a banner at the first lesbian protest in Geneva in 1982, which was organized by Vanille/Fraise, a group of political lesbians who carried out a series of festive activist interventions which today remain strikingly contemporary.

CEINTURE NWAR

Rakajoo

VERNISSAGE: LE MERCREDI 18 OCTOBRE 2023 DE 18H À 21H

OPENING: WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18, 2023 | 6 TO 9 PM

EXHIBITION: 19/10/2023 – 07/01/2024

Open 12h-21h

https://palaisdetokyo.com/en/exposition/ceinture-nwar/

The meaning of his Wolof moniker tips us off: Rakajoo’s painting is stubborn. Like a ungrammatical hyphen popping up where we least expect it, his painting brings together and fuses disparate dynamics, drawing on his personal experience to trace a collective Afropean story characterized by duality and pluralism, a story about being both African and European all at once and without discontinuity.

Rakajoo draws on a range of languages and mediums, from painting to comics to animation, from acrylics to ink, from oils to pixels. He blends subjects, memories and allegories as if he was superimposing washes, in compositions always infused with memories of Seine Saint-Denis, the Goutte d’Or neighbourhood and Senegal, as well as of his career as an Olympic boxer.

The artist depicts the visible or invisible links that bind individuals to their territories and immediate environments. He shows how imagination, consciousness and reflexes are honed, shaped and fractured in specific spaces. The sites he evokes evolve in response to shifting individualities, as well as to the processes of gentrification. His is a painting that questions the porous contours of national identity, in all its complexity, from its ability to ground and centre to its multiple contradictions.

PALAIS DE TOKYO

13, avenue du Président Wilson 75116 Paris

ACAC – Arad Contemporary Art Center

MAYA SMIRA | The heart of the iceberg

Opening: Friday, 8. SEPTEMBER 2023 | 11 am

Curator: Leah Abir

Exhibition: 8.9. – 25.11.2023

Open Wednesday, Thursday 9 -13, 16 -20 . Saturday 11 -14

ACAC at Matnas Arad Israel, 28 Ben-Yair street (1st floor) Arad, Israel

https://www.mayasmira.com/single-post/solo-exhibition-at-acac

https://www.acacarad.org/exhibitions

The ground of Iceland consists of layers of fertile pre-historic lava, full of life, formed under the ice. It is lethal when it erupts but also carries the future within it – soil, plants, animals, life. Volcanic and geothermal activity constantly simmers under the mountains, the glaciers, and the sea – whoever is listening can hear it. If we turn our ears to the deserts surrounding Arad, there, too, we will sense the rustling of deep history, hundreds of millions of years that had moved, raised, and sculpted cliffs, canyons, plants, animals, life.

Maya Smira’s camera travels in these two extreme environments of desert and glaciers, gave birth to the series of works “Fata Morgana,” in which she binds together elements of fire and water, ice, salt, snow, and a blazing sun: ice ponds in the Judean desert and arctic glaciers in the Negev. During her residency programs in Iceland and Arad, Smira has been exposed to the extreme landscapes and the temporariness of what seems, on the surface, like eternal, endless spaces. The works also point to the processes of their degradation and disappearance, and the dangers threatening their unique life forms: worldwide ecological changes and the climate crisis. 

https://www.acacarad.org/exhibitions

https://www.facebook.com/aradcontemporaryartcenter/

Maya Smira is an award winning multidisciplinary artist, who use time based media, photography & installation, as well as performance, dance & movement. Her creative process is deeply involved in larger global and social issues and events, and is effected by her constant travels around the world.

In 2012, she obtained a BA in Arts and Humanities, and a BFA in photography in Tel-Aviv.

In 2014 she received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute New Genres department, along with the Ella King Torrey Award. In 2016 she received The Outset Foundation Award for best video artist at the Fresh Paint Contemporary Art Fair in Tel-Aviv. She exhibit in Museums, Galleries and Festivals around the world, while teaching and lecturing about art & photography. 

EDUCATION

2014        MFA, New Genres, San Francisco Art Institute, CA

2012        BFA, Photography, Minshar for Art (with honors), Tel-Aviv, Israel

2012        BA, Art & Humanities, The Open University (with honors), Israel  

2007        Advanced Photography Training, Geographic center, Tel- Aviv, Israel

2003        Beginner Photography Training , The Rotchild center, Tel-Aviv, Israel

https://www.mayasmira.com/about

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Museum – http://www.estherartnewsletter.com/news/museum

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CRONE BERLIN

ECKART HAHN | Hart wie Schein

Opening | 15. September 2023

SPECIAL OPENING HOURS DURING BERLIN ART WEEK

Sonntag, 17. September 2023 | 12 – 18 Uhr | Sunday, September 17, 2023, noon to 6 pm

Ausstellung | Exhibition: 16. September – 4. November 2023

ÖFFNUNGSZEITEN / OPENING HOURS

Dienstag – Samstag, 11 – 18 | Tuesday – Saturday, 11 am – 6 pm

Crone Berlin GmbH I Fasanenstraße 29 I 10719 Berlin

https://www.galeriecrone.com/berlin

„Hart wie Schein“ Eckart Hahn

Im Rahmen der Berlin Art Week

zeigt auf eindrucksvolle Weise, dass sich Hahn in seinem gesamten Schaffen drei Dingen verschrieben hat: Der Malerei, dem Hyperrealismus und dem Ad-Absurdum-Führen einer immer absurderen Welt.

Hahns Bilder verblüffen den Betrachter vom ersten Moment an durch ihre akribische, hoch präzise Malerei. Sein Pinselstrich nimmt es scheinbar mühelos mit altmeisterlicher Kunstfertigkeit und Malertugend auf, die Motive verraten aber sofort, dass wir uns im Hier und Heute befinden. Traumhaft unwirkliche Mensch-Tier-Figuren treiben ihren Schabernack, buntes Gefieder formt sich zu Soldatenhelmen, in verödeten Landschaften tun sich schwarze Löcher auf, unter gelupften Frauenröcken lugen freche Piepmatze hervor und mächtige Wesen entpuppen sich als hölzerne Kulisse.

Die Motive der Hahnschen Malerei lassen es offen, ob sich darin eine Symbolik verbirgt oder nicht. Man kann sie stets so interpretieren oder auch anders. Man kann das eine darin sehen, aber auch das genaue Gegenteil. Sicher ist nur, dass Hahn uns eine Welt vor Augen führt, in der nichts mehr zu sein scheint, wie es ist, sondern alles nur noch ist, wie es scheint. Unser Dasein im neuen Jahrtausend wird als absurdes Welttheater inszeniert, als eine einzige Chimäre, die zu unserer harten Realität geworden ist.

Den Ausgangspunkt seiner Malerei findet Eckart Hahn in der digitalen Welt. Er thematisiert die sinnlich-haptischen Kapazitäten unserer Wahrnehmung, indem er die Bildsprache virtueller, medialer Realitäten in hyperrealistische Gemälde übersetzt. Dabei hinterfragt er postfaktische Unsicherheiten und macht Surreales und Paradoxes erfahrbar. Häufig schöpft er seine Themen aus aktuellen Diskursen: Artensterben, Konsumgesellschaft, Mystik, Verschwörung, Religion, Klimawandel – Hahns Bilder spielen augenzwinkernd mit der Oberfläche, lassen aber tief blicken.

Eckart Hahn wurde 1971 in Freiburg im Breisgau geboren. Er studierte Fotografie, Kunstgeschichte und Grafik in Stuttgart und Tübingen, ehe er sich 1998 ausschließlich der Malerei zuwandte. Seine Arbeiten wurden in zahlreichen internationalen Einzel- und Gruppenausstellungen gezeigt, u.a. in New York, Berlin, München, Mailand, Madrid und Paris.

eckarthahn.com

opening of the exhibition Hart wie Schein by the German artist Eckart Hahn in our Berlin gallery. It takes place during the Berlin Art Week and shows the impressive way that Hahn has devoted himself to three things in his oeuvre: painting, hyperrealism, and making nonsense of an increasingly senseless world.

Eckart Hahn’s paintings amaze the viewer from the first moment with their meticulous, highly precise painting technique. His brushstrokes seem to effortlessly take on old master artistry and painterly virtue, but the motifs immediately reveal that we are in the here and now. Dreamlike, unreal human-animal figures play tricks, colorful plumage forms into soldiers’ helmets, black holes open up in desolate landscapes, cheeky peepers peek out from under lifted women’s skirts, and mighty creatures turn out to be wooden backdrops.

The motifs of Hahn’s painting leave it open whether symbolism is hidden in them or not. One can always interpret them in a metaphoric way, but also differently. One can see one thing in them, but also the exact opposite. The only thing that is certain is that Hahn shows us a world in which nothing seems to be as it is, but everything is as it appears. Our existence in the new millennium is staged as an absurd world theater, as a single chimera that has become our harsh reality.

Eckart Hahn finds the starting point of his painting in the digital world. He addresses the sensual and haptic capacities of our perception by translating the visual language of virtual, media-based realities into hyperrealistic paintings. In doing so, he questions post-factual uncertainties and makes the surreal and paradoxical tangible. He often draws his themes from current discourses: species extinction, consumerism, mysticism, conspiracy, religion, climate change—Hahn’s images play with the surface with a wink, but provide a deep insight.

Eckart Hahn was born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1971. He studied photography, art history, and graphics in Stuttgart and Tübingen before turning exclusively to painting in 1998. His work has been shown in numerous international solo and group exhibitions, including in New York, Berlin, Munich, Milan, Madrid, and Paris.

https://www.galeriecrone.com/berlin