Daemmerung 2020

Eckart Hahn made this unsettling painting, "Daemmerung," using traditional oil paint on canvas. At first glance, it's a fairly conventional approach, but the content couldn't be further from tradition. The image presents us with primates perched upon a massive, tightly-wound rope, set against a disconcerting, fading sky. The hyper-realistic rendering of the rope is particularly interesting. Hahn meticulously depicts the texture and form of each strand, giving it a monumental, almost architectural presence. Think of rope and its associations: labor, constraint, even violence. The sheer amount of implied work in coiling the rope contrasts sharply with the languid, almost mournful poses of the monkeys. Hahn engages with a long history of allegorical painting, but he does so with a contemporary sensibility. He knows that materials and making matter, and that the choices an artist makes can imbue a work with powerful social and cultural significance. It is through these unsettling contrasts that Hahn challenges our assumptions about the boundary between craft and fine art.