Grand Vent 2017

Curator: Let's discuss Eckart Hahn’s "Grand Vent" from 2017, a captivating mixed-media collage. Editor: It's arresting. My immediate thought is how fragile the work feels, all those torn edges. What do you make of the parrot image contrasted against the abstract forms? Curator: Birds often signify freedom and a connection to the divine in art history, so placing the parrot, bursting out of seemingly nothing, gives the collage a layered symbolic punch. The torn paper… what does that evoke in you? Editor: Thinking about Hahn's material choices, paper, an everyday object, it becomes something quite evocative in this context. The labor of tearing, of layering, it transforms the mundane into something significant. Are we to read those scraps as discarded ideas? Failed attempts? Curator: Could be. Or perhaps paper as a veil being rent. A revelation through destruction. The “Grand Vent”– perhaps a force dismantling existing structures to make way for…the unexpected? Editor: It's an interesting question of context as content. Consider how collage disrupts traditional painting. It forces you to reconsider the image's creation, the artist’s hand present through material transformation. Curator: Hahn has worked across styles and disciplines throughout his career; do you feel his surrealist approach harmonizes with realist portraiture here? Editor: Absolutely. I'd wager that contrast and juxtaposition of realist figuration with a surreal landscape is a means to expand how portraiture functions. The image isn't simply of a bird, but of possibility and rupture. Curator: A striking example of how form and symbol, in this piece, really play on transformation and liberation. It goes beyond the literal representation. Editor: Looking again, Hahn isn't just showing us torn paper, he's demonstrating its potential. Its capacity to evoke emotional and intellectual concepts. I'm left thinking a lot about the relationship of art and craft. Curator: Yes. Well, it's certainly been illuminating viewing this artwork together, teasing out some threads on symbolism, construction and significance. Editor: Indeed, the materiality married to symbol. Food for thought!