3. Juni 2012 - New Ceramics

“Transformation“
Installation in porcelain and stoneware
of kaolin and is thus related to
porcelain. The artist has frequently
combined tissue paper with porcelain
and has even fired it, fascinated
by the metamorphosis that
takes place in this process.
What it is that combines us humans
is on the one hand the earth
that we all stand on, and on the
other it is language, the word. For
Renate Hahn it is the written word.
On wafer thin tablets of porcelain
that seem to move like scraps of
paper in the wind, she has screen
printed relics of letters that link
her to friends all over the world.
She has assembled these porcelain
tablets to form unusual relief image,
installations on the floor and
translucent images in the windows. The relief "River" consists
of cubes – also with printed images – that have rounded edges
reminiscent of stones that have rolled down a hill, being moved
on in the water, in the same way as a conversation keeps moving
on. Renate Hahn has preserved personally crucial experiences
in a “Memory Box“. It is made of ceramic slabs and closed
with a thick acrylic lid, and this container contains mementos
that now seem to have been laid aside, no longer playing a part
in life. As the lid can no longer be opened, they can be preserved
without being a burden, although they can still be seen
indistinctly – fading memories.
Many years ago, Renate Hahn wrote that her working
method always consisted of a “strange tension between keenest
discipline and constraint when I was learning new techniques,
and uninhibited experimentation, when I had mastered the
technique, always tied to a theme.“ Over the years the theme
has remained the same, if the forms of expression and the
means with which Renate Hahn expresses herself artistically
have changed. These transformations can be observed in the
REnATE HAHn
Renate Hahn was born on the island of norderney in 1946. She worked as a foreign language secretary
in Geneva from 1968-1980, then studied German and Romance philology in Geneva, Hamburg
and Cologne, before becoming a teacher in Kiel. From 1980-1982, she worked in the studio of Inke
and uwe Lerch as well as being a guest student under Johannes Gebhardt in Kiel. She has had her
own studio in Bad Laasphe since 1983 and was also a guest student under Ralf Busz at the Gesamthochschule
in Kassel. She qualified as a journeyman potter in 1989. 1998/99 she was a member
of the master class of Professor Kawasaki at the Seika university in Kyoto, Japan. Since 1985, she
has participated in numerous international competitions and group exhibitions in Germany and
abroad, and she has had solo exhibitions since 1989, as well as participating in innumerable symposia
and residencies worldwide since 1990.
Renate HaHn
Obere Rote Hardt 32
D-57334 Bad Laasphe, Germany
Tel/Fax: +49 (0) 27 52-20 03 31
www.renatehahn.de
RenateHahn@t-online.de
collections of many museums in Germany, the Czech Republic,
Australia, Italy, the USA, Slovakia, Lithuania, Japan and Poland,
as well of course as in numerous private collections. These unusual
pieces found recognition at an early stage, for instance in
1989 in Mino, Japan, 1990 in Zagreb, Croatia, 1995 in Faenza,
Italy and in 1999 in Cesky Krumlov, the Czech Republic.
At the opening ceremony of one of Renate Hanh's exhibitions
in 1996, Andreas Weisheit said, “The much appreciated
aesthetic qualities in this artwork have their roots in the characteristics
of the material and a consciousness of its contentual
dimension. The making process is thus not only an intellectual
problem but it is above all a holistic aspiration for sensibility
and thought … the richness of the material vocabulary and
the potential of its craftsmanshipare articulated in the result."
it is not possible to describe Renate Hahn and her work more
fittingly.
antje Soléau lives in Colgne and is a freelance journalist who writes
for German and international art and craft magazines.
MAY / JunE 2012 NEW CERAMICS 17
PROFILE