Stephen Hannock – Intimate Landscapes of the Soul on Show at Wirth Galerie (October 1 – November 1)

With his new exhibition ‘Ophelia Rising’, the contemporary American painter digs into the magnetic and magmatic depths of his personal history to gift the viewer with pieces of art that are as sincere as vividly evocative.

By Tommaso Cartia

Stephen Hannock – Hogsmill River Oxbow, Flooded: For Bridget (MASS MoCA #281) 2018 Polished Mixed Media on Canvas 36″ x 60″ x 1.25″/ 91.4cm x 152.4cm x 3.2cm

My second time around at Wirth Galerie – the eclectic art salon space in NYC, sharply thought and designed by curator Sabrina Wirth – left me shaken and still shaking by the emotional intensity with which Stephen Hannock’s new works spoke to me, with the dazzling speed of a sudden thunderbolt.

Intimacy. I almost felt like I needed to come up with a new word for intimacy, maybe with a new world. As I stepped into the room and made eye contact with one of Stephen Hannock’s paintings, I knew immediately that I was stepping into a new world, a space lit up by a full spectrum of human emotions. I knew immediately that Mr. Hannock was telling me a story, and probably his own story, but more than that, he was telling us about our history, at the threshold of life and the mystery of the unknown. And I had no preconceptions about Hannock’s aesthetic, or the artistic reasons behind ‘Ophelia Rising’.

Stephen Hannock – Blue Water with Ophelia Rising (MASS MoCA #328) 2021 Polished Mixed Media on Canvas 23″ x 18.5″/ 58.4cm x 47cm

What I felt is that his Ophelia, notoriously depicted on the verge of drowning incapable of her own distress but still regally gracious in her own stillness, is somehow singing an ode to the beauty of a life lived to the fullest while she feels the swirling traction of the waters. A moment of suspension on the life’s stage, where gratitude and abandonment, ecstasy and grieving, have the same weight and dissolve one into the other whispering to us the secrets of death and rebirth.

Stephen Hannock’s pieces struck me as iconographies, fragments of moments where the timeline between present, past, and future is truly not alignable, but comes and goes in waves bringing sudden pieces of truths to the surface about to be submerged by the uproar of our subconsciousness.

It is later on during the presentation of the exhibition that I come to know that the ‘Ophelia Rising’ paintings are indeed intended as an ode to life, inspired by the life of Hannock’s late wife Bridget; by their family, by the emotional and physical places that Hannock’s traverses down the memory lane of emotions.

Stephen Hannock – Emerald Willow Waiting for Ophelia (MASS MoCA #282) 2018 9″ x 13.5″ / 22.9cm x 34.3cm

As stated by curator Sabrina Wirth: “the series centers around his wife Bridget, and the emotions the loss has inspired and evoked in Hannock’s artistic practice, the paintings in this exhibition are very much a celebration of life. When speaking about this body of work, Hannock enthusiastically describes it as depicting “a universal story”. The stories all come together in the final painting in the exhibition, “Hogsmill River Oxbow, Flooded: For Bridget”, a magnificent portrayal of the landscape where the Oxbow River bends, that includes written narrative woven in between the greenery, collages of both Chuck Close and Gregory Crewdson’s photographs, and then, on the far right, an image of his daughter Georgia seated on her mother’s memorial bench (appearing for the first time in his paintings) peering out dreamily into the horizon, onto the future, and into the next chapter.”

Sabrina Wirth & Stephen Hannock at the opening night of ‘Ophelia Rising’
Stephen Hannock – Lady of Shalott (MASS MoCA #278) 2018 Polished Mixed Media on Canvas 14.25″ x 11.25″ / 36.2cm x 28.6cm

The night of the opening was also graced by the presence of Jason Rosenfeld, Hannock’s long-lasting friend and estimator, Editor-at-Large of the Brooklyn Rail and co-curator of the exhibitions John Everett Millais (Tate Britain, Van Gogh Museum),  River Crossings (Olana and Cedar Grove, Hudson and Catskill, New York) and Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde (Tate Britain and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), among others. It was precisely the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition curated by Jason Rosenfeld a big inspiration behind ‘Ophelia Rising’: “Hannock was struck by the story of Shakespeare’s Ophelia – a popular theme among the Pre-Raphaelite artists,” states Sabrina Wirth, “the story of a young woman tragically arrested in her youth resonated with him, and even more so because the imagined location where John Everett Millais painted Ophelia was the Hogsmill River, reminiscent of the Oxbow River that is the subject in many of Hannock’s paintings. When he began composing his own Ophelia, Hannock felt as though he was “literally picking up where [Millais] left off.

The pre-Raphaelites believed in setting a scene for their subjects, resulting in paintings with a theatrical stage-like composition. Hannock’s Ophelia series plays off (or “riffs off” as Stephen likes to say) this theatrical sequence, starting with “Emerald Willow, Waiting for Ophelia” a painting representing the environment where she would eventually lay. Other iterations of Ophelia present her in the morning fog, in the middle of the Oxbow at early dawn, and finally with her rising- her final chapter is one of resurrection and celebration: Hannock gives her the opportunity to move on. In a previous interview, Hannock said: “The Oxbow has become sort of a metaphor of a stage for me. That’s just another link to the episodes of my stories. I recreated the Hogsmill river, I turned it into a little Oxbow, and there are a whole series of permutations with every show that I do.”

On show at Wirth Galerie till November 1ist, ‘Ophelia Rising’ feels like an invitation and an occasion, for us to rise above our life’s miseries, our sense of loss and dissolution, to celebrate the richness of the gift of life treasured in memories that suddenly re-emerge from the abysses of the past to light up a future for us.

To find out more about the exhibition & Wirth Galerie:

Website: www.wirthgalerie.com

Instagram: @wirthgalerie


What Will We Take With Us Into Post-COVID Life?

In this powerful Op-ed. Storyteller, Art Curator, Artist & Creative Pois-On Contributor Sabrina Wirth reflects on our collective social and business future after the global pandemic emergency.

COVID19 Mask
Sabrina Wirth wearing one of the masks that she produced during quarantine.

When we started this quarantine journey together in mid-March, it was like we knew we were settling in for the long ride. We knew it would be temporary, and that it would be an inconvenience, but we approached it as a challenge. And so, we began to get creative and resourceful, thinking of ways to keep us busy, or create new content, because all of a sudden, social media became everyone’s outlet, and our home, the stage. Three months in and this temporary way of life has slowly transformed into the “new normal”. The big questions on everyone’s minds now, are: what will remain from this existence, what will return to how we remembered it, and what will change? 

By Sabrina Wirth

There is no question that pre-COVID life will remain in the past, and whatever we had been used to will have to continue in its adapted form- if it is to continue at all. Anyone who had been reluctant to jump on Instagram, or other social media, is now discovering the platform, and realizing that it is the window into a borderless, and virus-free world that does not have to follow social-distancing rules (Yet, at the same time, realizing that it is also a highly visible world, where the impact of what you publish can have far-reaching consequences). In the process of (re)discovering these alternate environments, many individuals and companies came to the awareness that much of what they deemed necessary, like in-person meetings, is in reality more efficient over the phone or on Zoom.

A ZOOM meeting in times of Corona Virus

Distance can no longer be considered an acceptable excuse for missing -or being late to- a meeting, because how can you be late to a phone call? It is safe to say that technology has significantly changed our pace of life over the past 30 years. Remember writing and receiving letters? Those shoeboxes once filled with letters from pen-pals are now filled with either bills, invitations, solicitations, and the occasional letters or postcards. In those letter-writing days, immediate gratification was not a thing. We lived our lives off-line and in the physically present moment. Indeed, everything was much more local, and calling someone in another country was a planned event. When texting became more common, it was exciting to be able to reach another person so instantaneously. Now, no one even gives it a second thought. Our pace of adjusting to the opportunities technology provides has been increasing gradually- so gradually that no one has really noticed.

Then, Covid-19 happened. It was as though someone said “now stop whatever you’re doing because if you want to continue, you have to figure out a different way.” They say “necessity is the mother of inventions”, and in a sense, we (by “we” I mean the majority) have had to invent a new way of life. That’s why #creativitywillsaveus keeps growing, because creatives are, by nature, constantly reinventing and reimagining. They are the ones who are leading the path into this new world, and the more people share on this platform, the more people are inspiring others to do the same. 

With all these advancements in technology and tools for working remotely, why has the workplace structure remained the same for so long? The traditional 9-5, 8-hour workweek has been around since the 20s when Henry Ford and the labor unions instituted a regulated work schedule. After WWII, when women and African Americans entered the workforce, office layouts were designed in the style of the factory floor rows, which had become common during the war years, and have since barely changed. It’s taken 3 months of quarantine and forced “work-from-home” for people to consider a different way- a more creative way.

During the quarantine, Sabrina got creative producing art, homemade masks, and developing innovative entrepreneurial ideas. She is also giving her voice to the podcast version of the Creative Pois-On #CreativityWillSaveUs Series. Check it here below!

And it’s taken this pandemic for people to finally embrace the changes that technology has made possible. If employees are able to productively work from home from whatever geographic location they are in, it confirms the notion that the traditional work model is outdated. As businesses begin to open up and people are given the option to return to their offices to work, there is a high likelihood that most people will want to maintain their flexibility, since it worked just fine during the quarantine. The one main difficulty, however, will be maintaining a sense of structure and balance between work and life, since the two have been blurred by existing within the same space. 

One industry that is discovering a “re-birth” of sorts, is the art business. Auction houses, galleries, museums… the kind of business that relies on in-person viewing. It’s a hand-shake business that capitalizes on the stories behind the object, the mystery of the artist’s process, the stories evoked in the tactility of the paint. The Mona Lisa is not the same on a screen as it is in the Louvre. A picture of a Warhol is not the same as the real thing. So what will this post-Covid transition look like?

Online Gallery
Is the online market the future of the Art Business?

For a while, auction houses were merely flirting with the idea of expanding the market online, and -despite the fact that being in the auction room itself is much more exciting- were cautiously making advancements with online bidding. It was never taken completely seriously though until a recent online auction at Sotheby’s brought in $36 million, more than double from the same period last year. Seeing these numbers come in from digital sales seems to be the validation the art world needed in order to forge ahead into more online ventures. To move ahead of the competition, without the advantages of real estate and location, the challenges will then be about storytelling and creating experiences that transcend between the virtual and the physical. In the meantime, however, museums and institutions that rely on membership and visitor fees will need to re-imagine the on-site experiences they provide in order to keep visitor numbers up. Will visits be limited to a certain number of people? What will happen with blockbuster exhibitions?

As the light at the end of this quarantine-tunnel becomes more visible, and our global attention is split between health and civil rights issues, I cannot help but feel a rush of emotions when I consider what our next phase of life will be. While eager to return to a sense of normalcy, I find myself hoping that some elements from this moment of isolation carry through into our future. Solidarity and community, for one.

#BlackLivesMatter
One of Sabrina’s homemade masks inspired by the principles of solidarity and community. Find more of these creations on Sabrina’s Instagram @_artwirth_

When we were all forced to individually “shelter-in-place”, we found ways to come together with tools like Zoom, FaceTime, and social media. In fact, many people may have found more community throughout these past several months than they had before. The shared efforts of making masks or designing and producing PPE face shields brought creative people from all industries together in a way they hadn’t previously experienced. The Black Lives Matter movement amplified the feeling of solidarity. Hopefully, this awareness of being able to impact change as a collective can transition into a more permanent state. Together, we can do more: we can be more creative, we can affect change, we can be stronger. Together, we are better. Let’s keep this as our main souvenir from Covid.

Sabrina Wirth
Sabrina Wirth

Sabrina Wirth is an artist, curator, writer, and storyteller. Her curiosity for people and different cultures has led her down various unusual, but fulfilling paths, such as exploring Iraqi Kurdistan, and working on a film about refugees in France. She believes in the power of creativity, and has learned that the best stories are the real-life, human ones.

For more info on Sabrina please visit: www.sabrinawirth.com

Grimanesa Amorós – Lighting Up her Lovingly Romance with the Unknown

Grimanesa Amoros

The Artistic Directors of Creative Pois-On, Daniela Pavan and Tommaso Cartia, gently turned through the pages of the artist’s extraordinarily eventful life to paint a vivid chiaroscuro portrait of the woman behind the art, and the art behind the woman, circling the earth with her light in the attempt to make sense of her lovingly romance with the unknown.

November 2019, is the Enlightenment month for the Creative Pois-On Podcast. “Let there be light. And there was light.” This infamous quote from the Genesis, expresses in a poetic and very visual way, an essential creative process – to bring something to the light, out of the darkness. This is true of all creations: when you birth an idea, when you bring to the light a child, when you light up the stage of a theater and you give light to your creation for everybody to see it, when you stand up under the spotlight to pitch your business idea that you’ve been working so hard on. This is what Creative Pois-On wanted to explore in the four episodes of the November podcast; trying to understand how vital Light is in any creative process, but at the same time how fundamental darkness is, meaning everything that happens in the dark before an idea, a project is out in the light.

Tommaso and Daniela were kind of wresting in the Dark, looking for the perfect interview subject for the November series; until they got hit by the Light in Grimanesa Amorós’s work – an artist who exemplary embodies and exudes the theme of light.

Please listen to our two-parts podcast interview with the artist here below:

About Grimanesa Amorós:
Grimanesa Amorós was born in Lima, Perú, and lives and works in New York City. She is an interdisciplinary artist with diverse interests in the fields of social history, scientific research and critical theory, which have greatly influenced her work. Her works incorporate elements from sculpture, video, lighting, and technology to create site-specific light installations to engage architecture and create community.Grimanesa Amorós has often drawn upon important Peruvian cultural legacies for inspiration for her large-scale light-based installations, which she has presented around the globe from Mexico, Tel Aviv, and Beijing to New York’s Times Square. She often gives talks at museums, foundations, and universities where her lectures not only attract future artists, but students and faculty engaged with science and technology. Amorós has exhibited in the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. For more information about Grimanesa Amorós, visit http://www.grimanesaamoros.com @grimanesaamoros #grimanesaamoros