THE THRILL OF IT ALL / MODERN LIVING

The work in this exhibition by Karin Hanssen (born 1960) is about piddling human activity. Under the title The Thrill of it All, a number of photo- and film-images have been transposed to white canvas. Painting and photography meet and stress each others antithesis. On the one hand there is the rapidity and glancing objectivity of photo and film, on the other hand the ‘slowness’ of the subjective painting. The images refer to genre painting as well as to photography. Modern Living comprises a series of small drawings, which also derive from photographs. These are images of spare-time being spent. There is a radiation of happiness and the illusion of freedom that accompanies it. 

De Morgen (W.E.) 1999

THE MODERN LIVING

Karin Hanssen (born 1960) is frugal in exhibiting her work: her last exhibition was four years ago. In Network, Aalst, she shows under the title The Thrill of it All/Modern Living.

10 paintings and a series of drawings. The rather small, blurry paintings, show scenes from ordinary life: a picnic, a woman tries on a coat, eats some ice cream or counts her money. The colours are sombre, the tone critical and distant.

These are genre-paintings but with a difference. The nicest and warmest canvas Nursery, shows two children on hobbyhorses in a composition reminiscent of nineteenth century painting. The second part of the exhibition, Modern Living, comprises beautiful, very small drawings of different leisure activities: by the pool, on the beach, on a terrace, but also in a supermarket and an art gallery. It is, says Karin Hanssen, a pseudo-sociologic research of piddling human activity.

Marc Holthof, Knack-Weekend 1999. 

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