Michael Hahn

Changing Worlds

There is a world, within a world, within a world - I can hardly describe it in words. From the edges or peripheries, I am looking at these worlds. Sometimes I see forms of life or architecture, which remind me of myself and how I imagine the world around me, and the possibility that things are not at all what they seem to be.
Therefore, in my art practice I use simple generated shapes and forms to create my own stories, my reality. Sometimes my process begins as an outline of ideas in several of my little sketchbooks. Other times I go to my computer, or to friends and colleagues who all contribute to the details of my practice, like research buddies.
My thoughts materialize in sculptural forms, but also in photographic images,
installations or performative gestures captured as video. The preferred palette is either neutral or monochrome in color and consists of commonplace materials and environments experienced in daily life. Plastic, drywall, wood, aluminum, stainless steel and plenty of found objects that are easily understandable are used.
No hidden magic effects are intended.
Despite these formal simplicities, there is always something undeniably odd. Street signs provide no location, sheets of drywall serve better as topography, and red carpet-lined stairs lead straight into a wall. Within my work, as in life, form does not always follow function, but is rather interrupted by the unexpected and again cobbled together. Though nothing is malicious, a bit of mischievous play is utilized as an approach to greater topics and commentaries imbued with social, political, and
economic complexities. The resulting works are a coping mechanism for aspects or forces difficult to understand, explain, or control in the otherwise banality of daily existence. Don’t take things for granted – I believe everything could change immediately.