ALEXANDER HAHN

electronic media artist

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


The Museum  

Date: 2020  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 41.8 x  23.5 inch

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


The Order  

Date: 2020  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 21.5 x  23 inch


Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


A Train - The Curator’s Decision  

Date: 2018  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media

Dimension:  41 x 23 inch


Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Wait - Look - Arrival

Date: 2019  

Technique: pigment ink on luster paper  

Dimension: 3 @ 20 x 11.5 inch, edition: 3, 1 AP  

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Meet me at Vanessa’s 

Date: 2017  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media

Dimension: 24.5 x  44 inch (sight)

Edition: 2 + 1 AP  

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


The Visit (H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana)

Date: 2017  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 24 x 14 inch (sight)

Edition of 3, 1 AP   

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


RR enters Gallery & sees a Likeness of herself in Chandigarh; Gallerist propounds 

Date: 2017  

Technique: series of 7, pigment ink on glass, mixed media

Dimension: @ 11 x 14 inch

Edition of 3, 1 AP    

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Leaving the United States

Date: 2015  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: triptych, 24 x 40 inch (sight)

Edition of 3, 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Alice in Wonderland

Date: 2015  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: triptych, 24 x 40 inch (sight)

Edition of 3, 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Butterfly House - Exit

Date: 2015  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 4 plates, 44 x 110 inch (sight)

Edition of 3, 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


The First Time

Date: 2015  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 24 x 12.5 inch

Edition of 3 + 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


A Glimpse of Vermeer

Date: 2015  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 18 x 16.7 inch

Edition of 3 + 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Her & Max

Date: 2015  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: Triptych, 24 x 70 inch. (sight)

Edition of 3, 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


The Medium

Date: 2015  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 24 x 12 inch

Edition of 3, 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Ghost Parade

Date: 2016 

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 24 x 44 inch (sight)

Edition of 3 + 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


I Command the Spirit to Enter My Body

Date: 2017  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 24 x 44 inch (sight)

Edition of 3 + 1 AP

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Apparitiom - Taj Mahal  - Apparition

Date: 2019  

Technique: pigment ink on luster paper  

Dimension: 17x 10 inch, edition: 3 & 1 AP 

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Covert Encounters - Spurious Goods :: Hearst Tower Nr.01

Date: Jan 26, 2008  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: Triptych, 13 x 22 inch

Private Collection

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Covert Encounters - Spurious Goods :: Canal Street Bank #2

Date: Jul 26, 2008  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: Triptych, 21.7 x 24 inch

Collection Kunstmuseum Solothurn

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Covert Encounters - Spurious Goods :: Canal Street Bank #1

Date: Jul 26, 2008  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: Triptych, 21.7 x 24 inch

Collection Kunstmuseum Solothurn

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Covert Encounters - Spurious Goods :: Egyptian Artifacts

Date: Dec 30, 2008  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: 21.7 x 24 inch

Private Collection

Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters


Covert Encounters - Spurious Goods :: Ludlow Street Bottle Collector

Date: Jul 26, 2008  

Technique: pigment ink on polycarbonate, mixed media  

Dimension: Triptych, 21.7 x 24 inch

• Annotation:     


Part of the series Public Places - Private Strangers - Temporal Encounters, an ongoing portrayal of urban life, continuing the pursuits of Walker Evans and Edward Hopper in candid photography and painting respectively, but caught by chance and fashioned with 21st century digital tools - low tech video surveillance and ink jet technology.


These encounters happen by chance and often in unexpected places, as in The Butterfly House in the Boston Museum of Science: "Exit only - do not enter!" the sign says. There is no return to childhood. 


Her & Max juxtaposes German expressionist portrait paintings with their guard at the Fogg Museum. She laughs when I ask her if I could take her picture and says "No, I always look horrible on photos." 


In Leaving the United States, another triptych, I'm stealing a forbidden look of a TS agent looking at me - surveillance reversed. The triptych format imparts the chronological order of images shot in rapid succession. 


At other times, a single image suffices: the rapture experienced by the young woman holding a snake or the brooding of the older woman in The Medium in a subway train during rush hour.     




• Technical Statement:     


The pictures are the rare crop found amidst the shaky, blurry and mostly unusable videos recorded by a body-worn camera. The framing is not done by my photographer's eye but by the chance movements of my body. A cheap camera, it produces very low-res pictures and the color space is shifted towards the infra-red, both qualities I like very much.  


The images shown here represent only the digital files. The actual works are inkjet prints, some of them triptychs, on various transparent substrates, e.g. polycarbonate or glass, shimmed with a variety of media that endow the pictures with a sensual, almost painterly quality, not normally found in photographs and add a radiance to the inks that is close to the original RGB colors, the realm of light I'm so drawn to.