Rolf Hans

Abstract Wooden Sculptures Figure XXV 1995 German/Swiss Artist Rolf Hans

1992

Where am I going? They offer us no clues that might help us answer these questions. Instead, they give us all the more scope for associations and imagination. They appeal to our subc...

Rolf Hans Frankfurt 1938 - 1996 Basel Set of 4 bird sculptures, 1990 Wood, paint Each signed on the underside 131/121 x 20 x 11.5cm The sculpture comes with a catalog about the artist. Provenance: Estate of the artist Authenticity confirmed in writing At the beginning of the 1970s, Rolf Hans began designing objects for the first time. These were small sculptures that he assembled from iron pipes with round or square profiles. With these, he sought to create a new, three-dimensional reality of experience, parallel to his paintings, which he was creating at the same time. In 1987, Hans returned to the medium of sculpture. He no longer regarded the working process as conscious construction, but rather as allowing himself to be guided by what was already there. And as with his paintings, his objects now arose from an inner necessity, not to fill an intellectual vacuum. "This compulsion has had a hold on me for decades, and for a few years now I have been trying to appease it with the cycle 'Poesie der Dinge' (Poetry of Things). The intellectual climate was ripe." So Hans concentrated on working on the sculpture cycle in the last decade of his life. And as if in a frenzy, he drew on the new possibilities offered to him by the design of the objects: "The poetry of things grows, it swallows up all my time, many things are neglected, hardly any letters, the diary is largely silent, concert visits are limited to the essentials. A compulsion arises, and yet it began as a game, but experiments were always a serious matter that demanded the whole man. [...] The objects have crept into my rational mind, cautiously and unnoticed, claiming their place, taking it, becoming part of myself." "It's a difficult thing with art. Looking at your predecessors, you try to find your way, the spirit of the times and its aesthetics influence the direction, you know about the dissatisfaction in which you move. Now, in the midst of the 'poetry of things', there is a feeling of freedom, yet closely connected to much that came before. There is no program, only a title that allows each work its freedom." But despite the role models before his eyes, Hans succeeds from the outset in finding his own unique ways of expression with his object cycle. What connects him to Max Ernst, Brancusi, and Duchamp is solely the source material: found objects. These are very mundane things from everyday life—once necessary, useful, and practical items such as tools, utensils, and devices—that have been stripped of their function and now serve as a gateway to the artist's imagination. In this way, Hans strips things of their previous, traditional function or archaic purpose and transports them into a different, new reality in order to breathe new life into them. In doing so, he does not want to deny the found form without aestheticizing it. By making only minor changes to their 'innate' structure, signs of wear, and color, he seeks to emphasize their meaning and purpose as form and to redefine their inherent charisma. The objects are worked on, forced to reveal their unique characteristics in their struggle with the artist and to make new statements in connection with other objects. In this way, Hans presents the abstract symmetries of the wood and metal objects without any artificiality and places them on a pedestal in accordance with artistic tradition. Furthermore, he integrates the pedestal into the work. As the lowest component, the pedestal not only prepares the viewer for the sculpture, but also loosens, loosens, or strengthens its connection to the earth. By raising them up, he gives the sculptures a further life of their own, a second existence, so to speak, and also gives them a new identity with a new name. "They show their personality, some more, some less, as is the case in life, or in art." What they all have in common is their influence from the past into the here and now. In doing so, they reveal their original beauty and the mysticism that fires our imagination. However ambivalent the sculptures and objects by Rolf Hans may appear to us, they never do so in a loud or exalted manner. With their balanced and simple appearance, they quietly and calmly, but decisively, enter into contact with us. In an unsettling way, they repeatedly prompt us to ask questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? They offer us no clues that might help us answer these questions. Instead, they give us all the more scope for associations and imagination. They appeal to our subconscious. They invite us to linger and meditate: it is the familiar beginning and the unconscious departure into the mysteries of creation. Exhibitions (selection) 2023 Kunsthandel Draheim, position berlin art fair 2023 Galerie Jörg Schuhmacher, Frankfurt am Main "Rolf Hans-Farbenspiel" 2022 Galerie Michael Blaszczyk, Bad Homburg, Rolf Hans, "Einblicke Hommage Reflexion" 2021 Jörg Schumacher Gallery, Frankfurt am Main "Rolf Hans-Farbwelten" 2021 Michael Blaszczyk Gallery, Bad Homburg "Sprache der Farben-Das Baseler Kabinett" 2020 Malte Ueckermann Art Dealers, Berlin, Kanalidarte, Brescia "Che cosa avrebbe detto Hegel_ROLF HANS... e la Poesia della cose," Italy Kunsthandel Draheim "art Karlsruhe," "Poesie der Dinge" 2019 Jörg Schuhmacher Gallery, Frankfurt am Main, Blaszczyk Gallery, Bad Homberg 2018 Art Karlsruhe, Kunsthandel Draheim, Wiesbaden, Color Fields 2018 Galerie Dekker, Baden-Baden, Retrospective Galerie Blaszczyk, Bad Homburg 2017 Gallery Eklektik, Monte Carlo, Monaco 2016 Galerie Schuhmacher, Frankfurt am Main 2016 Galerie Cerny Partner, Wiesbaden (Language of Colors) Art Karlsruhe, Kunsthandel Draheim, Wiesbaden (Tachist Painting + Iron Sculptures) Galerie Rainer Klimczak, Viersen Galerie Schuhmacher, Frankfurt am Main (Black on White) 2015 Galerie Blaszczyk, Bad Homburg art Karlsruhe, one Artist show (Galerie Cerny und Partner) Gallery Eklektik, Monte Carlo, Monaco 2014 Jörg Schuhmacher Gallery, Frankfurt am Main (A Retrospective-1) Tristan Lorenz Gallery, Frankfurt am Main (A Retrospective-2) Hellhof Gallery, Kronberg im Taunus (Works from 1960–1980) Art Fair, Cologne, Monochrome Painting (Draheim Gallery Art Dealers, Wiesbaden) 2013 Kunsthandel Thole Rotermund, Hamburg (In the Force Field of Color) + catalog Galerie Kunsthandel Draheim, Wiesbaden (Painting Sculpture 1970–1990) 2012 art KARLSRUHE, one Artist show (Galerie Art Dealers Draheim, Wiesbaden) 2011 Gallery Art Dealers Draheim, Wiesbaden (In the Rush of Colors – Works from the 1960s) 2009 Ketterer Kunst, Berlin (Rolf Hans – Painting and Sculpture) Art Dealers Michael Draheim, Wiesbaden (Rolf Hans – Poetry of Things) 2008 Galerie Art Mayence, Mainz (Rolf Hans – Language of Colors) Galerie Jörg Schuhmacher, Frankfurt am Main (Rolf Hans) Galerie Winterberg, Munich (Rolf Hans – The Language of Colors) Galerie Jörg Schuhmacher, Frankfurt am Main, Art Karlsruhe (Rolf Hans – One Artist Show) 2007 Galerie Jörg Schuhmacher, Frankfurt am Main ("Rolf Hans in the Field of Tension of the 'Quadriga'") 2001 Kunstraum Aare, Olten ("Rolf Hans – Paintings, Sculptures, Photographs") 1999 'Kunst im Liebrüti', Kaiseraugst ("Martin Frigg and Rolf Hans") 1992 Kommunale Galerie, Schlangenbad ("Gabriele Schmolk-Hieber, Paintings – Rolf Hans, Objects") 1991 Museum Schloß Salder, Salzgitter ("Poetry of Things") 1990 Galerie Brechbühl, Grenchen ("Poetry of Things") 1985 1985 Toni Brechbühl Gallery, Grenchen ("Two Friends, Ho-Kan, Milan – Rolf Hans, Basel") Toni Brechbühl Gallery, Grenchen ("Rolf Hans – Oil...

Where am I going? They offer us no clues that might help us answer these questions. Instead, they give us all the more scope for associations and imagination. They appeal to our subc...

Where am I going? They offer us no clues that might help us answer these questions. Instead, they give us all the more scope for associations and imagination. They appeal to our subc...

Yongjin Han was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1934. After the Korean War—in which he fought, lying about his age in order to enlist—he was one of six students admitted to the sculpture program at the Seoul National University. At the time of his enrollment little of his native city remained intact; nonetheless, he had never felt more responsible to his work, firm in the conviction that artistic expression is every bit as essential to life and human nature as eating, drinking, or breathing. One of Han’s teachers was Kim Chong Yung, a pioneer of Korean abstract sculpture, and by the time of his graduation he had adopted the abstraction that had seized both Europe and the United States several years before. . In 1967 he relocated to the USA, where he studied at Dartmouth and Columbia. Over the course of his long career the artist returned to Korea with frequency and made extended stays in Japan and Europe. Trips to Korea signified something more than mere homesickness: Han’s work, though made largely in America, remained grounded in his rich cultural heritage. Korea rests on a bedrock of granite, and freestanding sculpture produced of the stone has for centuries demarcated sites of historical and religious significance. Han’s sculpture bridges this past with modernity. Richard A. Born, former Curator at the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago, has said that Han “brought Korea’s tradition of direct stone carving out of figuration into a refined, non-objective abstraction.” For his part, Han put very little stock in designations; his focus, instead, was on the stone itself. His pieces explore a certain harmonization with nature. Han, when describing his work, said, "As stone has been around since the beginning of time, it has much to teach us if we care to slow down and listen." He believed that each stone has its own history, character, and energy and that his task was to draw out these inherently spiritual qualities. He described his process as a “dialogue” with his material: "The stone tells me it has an itch in a certain spot, so I scratch it—and we both feel better!" Han worked alone and with manual tools, and the process is arduous. Carving stone this way takes time, and, what’s more, required great force—yet Han’s sculptures, even the monumental ones, are, as friend and fellow artist David Parker...

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