Smile 2019

Eckart Hahn’s painting, "Smile," completed in Germany, presents us with a black swan tethered by a yellow rope beside a black dog. Hahn’s choices are evocative; both animals have connotations, from fairy tales to heraldry, that can lead to multiple readings. The black swan, in particular, invites us to consider the role of institutions in shaping our perception of the world. Before their discovery in Australia, black swans were thought not to exist, and the term became a metaphor for impossibility. Hahn seems to be interested in the way assumptions can be overturned by empirical evidence. Is it that social and cultural institutions have to be constantly questioned? To fully understand this, one might want to research bestiaries, fables, and other ways animals are portrayed. Exploring such references, one understands that an artwork’s meaning is never fixed, but is instead dependent on historical and cultural contexts.