HORIZONT, Gothenburg, May / June 2023.

The horizon line is the most comprehensive line that we know and experience. The division ascribed to her is not her whole character, for the quality of connectedness is also inherent in her. Without the line of the horizon, our picture of the world would lack orientation and we would falter. The gaze seeks the sky in the distance and finds a blurred zone in which what we call “land, water, sky” coexist clearly and ambivalently.

Erik Beckman’s poem “This Swedish Road” has long prompted me to reflect on the ambiguity of poetic language. I knew then and now know better in which pictures this path can be continued, artistically in woodcuts, drawings, my own texts. Beckman tries to pull the threads of different places into his lyrical shape in order to unfold the encounters of creative poetry. Places of arrival and breakups on the way to borders that are the horizon of art.

The difference in the spaces, the reality on this side and beyond the horizon do not compete, but open up in the visible. This also includes the movement, which is so important for finding form; and for the question of what is happening on the horizon, whether it is permeable, has openings and offers bridges and leads to something that is not fully visible in the picture.

Completely without a scheme, this swedish road leads further to what has been seen personally, there is where the key to freedom lies.

Short bio

Hans-Uwe Hähn

Born in1955 in Kreuztal / Westfalen. Education: Hochschule für Kunst Ottersberg, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg

Grants and Residencies:
1999 Klippans Kulturreservat Göteborg.
2007 Stiftung Kartause Ittingen.
2008/10 Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.
2021/23 Föreningen Konstepidemin Göteborg.

Select Exhibitions:
2021 Revierwechsel – Museum für Druckkunst, Leipzig. Print – Druckgrafik der Neuen Gruppe, Kulturmodell Bräugasse Passau. 2018 Korrespondenzen – galerie isabella lanz, Zürich.
2017 Andere Bäume – Galerie Lände, Kressbronn. Münsterlandfestival 2017 – part 09 Grafik, Galerie Münsterland Emsdetten.
2016 Mit Hochdruck, Kunstverein Schloss Ellwangen. Zeichen setzen – 7. Biennale der Zeichnung, Kunstverein Eislingen. Druckfrisch – Städtische Galerie und Städtisches Kunstmuseum Spendhaus Reutlingen; Die Drostei, Pinneberg; Städtische Galerie und Kunstverein Speyer; Kloster Bentlage, Rheine.
2015 Holzschnitte 2000 – 2015, Städtische Galerie Geislingen. Ein Zeltplatz untertage – galerie isabella lanz, Zürich.
2013 Schatten, Hunger, Rauch – Galerie Hoch & Partner, Leipzig.