Dear friends and guests,
I am particularly delighted to open today's exhibition and would like to briefly introduce the artist Hanna Sass and her work in this text. I will do so from my perspective, which strives for objectivity but is biased due to the numerous biographical points of contact. Because when I find myself in the same class, the same year, the same subject, at the same university with a person almost simultaneously, my view is naturally colored. Because her story is, in a way, also a part of my story.
I have known Hanna Sass for 15 years now. She is one of the first artists I had the pleasure of meeting as a student here in Halle. We started studying painting together with Ute Pleuger back then, and I still vividly remember her portfolio. What I particularly remember was her choice of colors: they were warm, hearty, earthy, meaning many browns, reds, greens, and with figures. After she continued to focus on more classical brush painting for some time, Hanna increasingly turned to printmaking techniques from about her third year of study and from then on mainly worked in shades of grey. The figure also receded somewhat into the background, even if the portrait served as a starting point into the abstract realms she increasingly explored. Only in recent years has color reappeared in her works, and I find, in a very pleasant way, but decidedly different from the color choice in her portfolio. Initially in blue and green tones, which are also predominant in this exhibition, but for some time now in an ever-expanding variety. In the meantime, however, Hanna had a grey phase in the middle of her studies, and perhaps one can simply leave it at that. The figure seemed to have disappeared or somehow got lost in the grey, until she rediscovered herself in photography, a medium that Hanna also dedicated herself to since her early years of study.
Her artistic process was and still is always accompanied by an impulsive and indeed physical way of working. I have never seen her work any other way. There is something aggressive, unrestrained, and wild about how she treats the artistic material. But then usually follows the elaborate and careful process of printing, of translation so to speak, where all that impulsiveness is tamed. I believe that this is exactly what I particularly like about her etchings and woodcuts: the combination of raw physicality and careful technique.
When I think of her artistic work, the following image sometimes comes to mind, which I wrote down years ago and which I still find quite fitting. The image of a child who takes pleasure in pushing large stones down a slope. It selects them, gives them a powerful shove, and observes with fascination how each stone rushes down the slope in its own unique and unrepeatable way. Threatening and fascinating.
So what happens in Hanna's work is the desire for interaction, by which I mean in contrast to fixation. The material in Hanna's work is allowed to speak, even more, it is allowed to formally take center stage. And Hanna doesn't seem to mind, on the contrary. Something similar happens in her photography, I think. The "how" is presented or put forward, takes the most prominent place, and is celebrated. And I believe that this is a brave path that Hanna is taking, namely that she trusts the artistic process and the material. So much so that she doesn't need or want to add much more to it.
And perhaps this may seem trivial to some: every artist cultivates a certain trust and love for material and process. Yes, but with Hanna, it is very pronounced. The fact that she had a ton-heavy printing press specially imported from another country to print on should be a small proof; that she was recently appointed head of the graphics workshop at the Burg, another. And if I try to distill something striking from the artists exhibiting here, then with Hanna it would probably be this peculiarity.
Even during my studies, I admired this trust in the process, because I am by nature rather skeptical when someone limits themselves to certain things or even trusts them. Hanna has worked her way into the material and the artistic process in such a way that the thought always came to me: Isn't that dangerous? To rely, so to speak, on only a few stilts and to climb higher and higher on them. To trust things like wood, stone, iron, and tools so much that one plays with them smiling or perhaps even laughing aloud. Doesn't she fear that she will be disappointed or betrayed by things, I ask myself. Is Hanna perhaps careless, or is there a cleverness hidden behind it?
Sometimes her artistic work seems almost too simple to me, and then again wonderfully simple. It is also beautiful, for example, to look into such a blue and to immerse oneself in the impression of the bare wood grain. It is beautiful to see these techniques at work, pure and unadulterated. Hanna then calls out to me: Look how beautiful! Indeed, she does this constantly and is wonderfully infectious in her enthusiasm, yet gentle, for she often pauses for a few seconds in her excitement and allows me or the other person time to comment, even to criticize, or to join in the enthusiasm. So she questions me, just as she questions the materials and then lets them speak. She gives the impetus and watches what happens.
This is my personal view of Hanna and her work, and I am very happy that we continue to work together and that there are always new developments with her, new stones, so to speak, that she pushes down the slope, and today, the exhibition "searching for silence."
I wish you much enjoyment and a pleasant evening to all!
Thank you very much!