Eckart Hahn: Papiertiger

Kunstmuseum Villa Zanders
With the exhibition Papiertiger The Kunstmuseum Villa Zanders presents around 50 paintings and five sculptures by Eckart Hahn (*1971), spanning the 1990s to the present day. The focus is on works in which the motif of paper is depicted in surprising and diverse ways. In Hahn's pictures, paper always remains fiction: with brush and paint, he creates an astonishingly realistic effect. We encounter paper as torn, folded, or enveloping, as a book, wallpaper, house of cards, cardboard cutouts, or origami. Hahn paints written on, crumpled, cut, and soiled paper; paper as collage, décollage, relief, layered, or in implied destruction—always with great painterly precision and imagination.

 

Hahn's distinctive "broken realism" combines precision with subtle humor, revealing the cracks and paradoxes of our reality. In stage-like scenes, we encounter animals such as tigers, elephants, birds, and wolves as carriers of complex meanings. Paper itself becomes a symbol of fragility, change, and the construction of reality.

 

With the exhibition Paper tiger Eckart Hahn's artistic exploration of the motif of paper directly addresses the collection focus of the Villa Zanders Art Museum. The exhibition expands the focus on paper as an artistic medium and introduces new facets into the dialogue with the collection.

 

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Ina Dinter. A catalogue will be published by Kettler Verlag, Dortmund.
 
Villa Zanders Art Museum , Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 8, 51465 Bergisch Gladbach
 
 
July 10, 2025