If nowadays being called a "painter" by people involved in art is not quite accepted, for Hans-Hermann ­ who is now exhibiting a series of pictorial works ­ the term is also incorrect.

Since for this German, who has been living in Italy for some time, art and life are a univocal choice that follows the same line day after day, a really personal and different way of life.

#1. This is a clear reference to Joseph Beuys, with whom Hans-Hermann had close ties. Producing art is, for him, a strictly personal need to reflect on the essence of things, to materialize concepts in a world where everyone acts more or less at random, making decisions that most of the time are not even the fruit of a real choice. In his works, life takes form in space and time, a form that cannot be veiled or plunged into darkness by a merely easthetic approach, that could lack awareness of life.
The most important feature in Hans-Hermann's attitude to grasp reality, looking in particular at the destructive aspect of things - as Mondrian did - and not only at the constructive element.

What counts, is his search for an awareness of Naught, his urge to create according to this awareness as the only constant feature of life.

In the TransDeReStrutturAzioni, on exhibition here, he concentrates on one point, on the now, on the hic et nunc, scratching, eliminating the matter, even the very support. It is like creating a pictorial work the other way around, by way of elimination. He digs in order to plant, in order to put in a seed: a metaphore of an existential sowing.
In other works, it is a question of " Sedimentazioni ". In both cases, time is fundamental: during the scratching phase, time becomes timeless, is Naught, as in Zen meditation.

It is like trying to eliminate the ego, to annihilate even the artist's role, that is often over " mythicised " nowadays. It is a ceaseless task, a sort of embroidery where the edge reveals the existance of different layers, accumulating " gestes " of a definite informal source: almost an attempt to turn a spiritual process into matter. The graphic aspect is strongly present in his work, recalling inevitably, with due respect, Roman Opalka, in some ways more absolute. It is like reiterating a certain kind of writing, a personal code, a " geste " going on forever, in order to bring to life his pictorial poems of excavations and superimpositions.

So we come back to " Vota Arte ", which is part of his life story. In his latest works - here on exhibition - , there is first of all a deep sense of disenchantment with the world's reality, and also with the rôle of Art, that seldom succeeds in changing things, but that perhaps, day after day, offers us a gift - the sensation that we manage to pursue our arduous, daily path.

#1. " Vota Arte ", a slogan known throughout the art world, that Hans-Hermann has divulged with his badges and stickers, is a way of sharing and becoming totally involved in art, through a vision free of everyday logic. From this point of view, the exhibition¹s title, "Freedom", is not fortuitous.


Traduzione dall'italiano in inglese di Elena Palumbo-Mosca e Valerie Wadsworth. English translation by Elena Palumbo-Mosca and Valerie Wadsworth.

Traduzione dal tedesco in italiano e in inglese di Elena Palumbo-Mosca e Valerie Wadsworth. Milano