Explosion 1936

Armin Hansen's "Explosion" is a print, and it looks like he's coaxing the image out of the paper with a kind of controlled frenzy. The texture feels almost sculptural, like he’s building up layers of emotion with each mark. Look at the figure lying down; the lines around the head are so frantic, you can almost hear the ringing in his ears. Then notice how the faces of the onlookers are sketched with such depth of feeling. You get the sense of the artist trying to capture not just what they look like but how they feel in this moment. It reminds me a little of Käthe Kollwitz, who also had this incredible ability to convey the weight of human suffering through printmaking. Both artists create an ongoing conversation about life and death through the means of art. It’s not about answers; it's about exploring the questions.