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Dirk Hagner ~ California |
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| Dirk Hagner, Printmaking Arts: "For an artist there are always projects to work on. Things which do not leave us alone, they have to be tried and brought to a conclusion. Often, they are not part of an ongoing body of work. Projects have a broadening and sometimes liberating effect on the work as they tend to widen the gamut of expression and technique. Many times they lead to new directions to be pursued in depth and yield new bodies of work." | |
Compound 16-panel accordion-style book with woodcuts, letterpress, and foil. Measures 5.625 x 4.375 x 0.5 inches, (14.4 x 11.2 x 1.25 cm) closed. Opens to display at 5.625 x 78.75 inches (14.4 x 202 cm). Printed in two shades, plus foil on hand-made paper for wrapped covers and back covers, and hand-made endpapers with screen printing. Includes a dedication page To Diversity and a colophon page at the end of the book. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "This little gem is about the beauty of diversity, an exquisite corpse as it were, in society, art, and language. Features eight compound animals reminiscent of chap-book style woodcuts, with letterpress titles in the Cromwell typeface.” |
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It Can Happen Here 9 x 6 x 1 inches (23 x 15 x 2.5 cm) when closed, and 9 x 6 x 42 inches (23 x 15 x 106 cm) opened. Case binding with covers wrapped in hand-made paper, quarter-bound with Kraftex leather strips. Multi-color letterpress typography pages, using different Futura types, with facing chine collé photogravures on old paper. 20 pages on heavy rag paper. Features an extending 6-panel gatefold of a 3-color woodcut in the center. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "In 1935 Sinclair Lewis wrote ‘It Can’t happen here’, about how a populist demagogue and corrupt political system brought fascism to the United States - like voting in a right-wing party and the consequent Nazi take-over in Germany in the 1930s. "Now, 89 years later, tens of millions of Americans are eager for this dystopic vision to become reality by getting ready to again vote against democracy - for an authoritarian, populist, orange savior, a hamster-brained egomaniac, and his party of sycophants. “The line-up of an outdated constitution, a corrupted supreme court, a dysfunctional two-party political system, and deeply engrained racism seem to offer little reason for hope to fend off the establishment of American dictatorship. "Yes, it can happen here, and it already is." |
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A Simple Lesson Closed measurements are 14.75 x 8.325 x 0.75 inches, (38 x 21 x 2 cm); opens to 14.75 x 99 inches (38 x 251 cm). A long accordion book illustrated with numerous woodcut images over screen printing, foil, letterpress, on 335g Coventry rag paper. Hand-made wrapped cover boards. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "Migration. Emigration. Immigration. The lesson is simple: none of us human beings come from the place where we are now. Be that we now migrate, emigrate, or immigrate or our ancestors have done so in the past: we all came from some other place than where we currently are. That makes humans so successful at overrunning the planet. It has always been like this and always will be like this until we disappear from the scene. We’re living things, and as such we do exactly like the birds, fish, plants, insects, and microbes: we leave one place to find a better one to survive, procreate, prosper: to live." |
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Mark Twain The book measures 11 x 6.125 x .75 inches closed (28 x 15.5 x 2 cm), and 11 x 54 x 3 inches when on display (28 x 137 x 7.6 cm). The accordion style book on heavy wove Arches rag paper has 6 panels plus a center 3-page flag book section. There is a colophon page in the back. The typeface used for the letterpress printing is Goudy Oldstyle. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "Mark Twain, the great humorist and keen observer of the 'lowest animal', one of the treasures of American literature, is the subject of this artist book. A large original reduction color woodcut portrait of him is featured on its pages. "Of course, Mark Twain was only his nom de plume, his real name was Samuel Longhorne Clemens. A page in the book shows his penned 'SLC' initials with which he often signed his correspondence. "There are so many marvelous quotes by Twain. Three of them are used throughout the book’s structure.” The truth hurts, but silence kills $1,425 |
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Mme. C. 10.125 x 13 x .625“closed (26 x 33 x 1.6 cm); displays open to 10.125 x 13 x 7” (26 x 33 x 18 cm). The structure is folded into 15 sections with 9 of them letterpress printed, using the Frutiger type face, on thick translucent vellum, with a clear cover that opens to pop up the book's structure and folds under during display. Signed and numbered. In slipcase. Dirk Hagner: "This architectural book is made to honor Marie Curie, referred to at the time as Mme. Curie, the female French scientist who was the first woman ever to win a Nobel Prize, in 1903. More so, she won a second Nobel in 1911, making her not only the first woman to ever have accomplished such a feat but also the only person ever to have received Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields (physics and chemistry). Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. “The ancient spiral structures of the ammonite and modern nautilus seemed a suitable form to carry her clear insight into the intertwined relationship of knowledge and fear. The Fibonacci whole number sequence of a spiral structure like that of the nautilus inspired also the Greek/renaissance principle of the ‘golden ratio’ in western art.” |
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We Saw A Flood - A No-Nonsense Book 9.5 x 15 x 3” (24 x 40.6 x 7.5 cm) closed extends to 9.5 x 64 x 1 inches (24 x 162.6 x 2.5 cm); 76 pages. 32 multi-color woodcuts, plus relief etchings and vignettes. Hand-printed on rag paper. Letterpress printed text using Cromwell and Metropolis types. Signed and numbered. Dirk Hagner: "’We saw a flood’ is about our ignorance and complicity we exhibit in the destruction of this world brought on by human caused climate change. Its underlying verse structure is based on the anonymous 17th-century British verse ‘I saw a peacock, with a fiery tail’, an example of a nonsense or ‘trick’ poem part of a rich tradition of verses rooted in Anglo-Saxon riddles. “This work has been a year in the making. It consists of two facing books of 76 total pages, which are to be viewed and read in tandem. The odd pages of the left-hand book show changing groups of faces with the first half of a verse, while the right-hand book show vignettes on its even pages and the corresponding second part of the verse. Both books share the back cover binding. The two-way pulling across multiple lines hints at the interconnectedness of things. The work is dedicated to those born after. Children like doing these kind of verbal splits and it is no accident that, while the topic is deadly serious, the imagery retains a sense of innocence. “The choice and position of typefaces provide clues to the hidden order of things and allow for faster line-jumping within the couplets. Letters aid in the graphic interplay between woodcut images and the lines of type, and provide rhythm to the pages.” |
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Lepidoptera 15 x 11.5" (38 x 29.25 cm). 29 aquatint etchings, woodcuts, chine collé. Letterpress and screen printing on 250 gm deckle edge rag paper. Quarter case binding. Signed and numbered. Dirk Hagner: "The Lepidoptera series of 11 original prints roots in eastern and western sensibilities, and mythological notions of male-female attraction. It is realized by using gestural spontaneity and the graphic precision of printmaking. "The project started with drawings for the woodcuts of the female figure, celebrated in art since the renaissance, and ink brush paintings for the making of aquatint lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) imagery. Asemic writing, printed from relief etchings, provide rhythmic compositional counterpoints. The addition of wood type letterpress outside the chine collé image area expands the visual to the entire page while the rich flat black screen-printed strips at its boundaries lead the viewer back into the composition. "Quotes from sufis Inayat Khan and Rumi open the scene and draw the final curtain. "Choosing different techniques in collaboration takes advantage of each of its unique properties achieving layering, texture, and sheen in ways where printmaking excels." |
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The Mask of Evil 13.75 x 11.25 x .675 inches (35 x 29 x 1.8 cm); 12 pages including front and end matters on heavy 480 gm rag paper. Multi-color woodblock prints and letterpress type. Quarter-bound in black Kraftex leather over blue hand-made paper covered boards, with foil title. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "Brecht's 'The Mask of Evil' reveals beautifully the problem of being angry and hateful in this world: it's straining and a lot of effort - exactly what it looks and sounds like. Here it is interpreted with anxious typography, juxtaposed with calm organic wood textures." |
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New Collective Nouns 7.875 x 5.75 x 0.5" (20 x 14.6 x 1.3 cm); 25 pages. Printed letterpress on heavy weight translucent sheets over 2-color screen-printed type compositions on 250 gm deckle edge rag paper. Hard cover, single page quarter binding with bookmark ribbons. Sea green Ingres end papers with red kozo edging. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "I made these little volumes of contemporary New Collective Nouns recently. They are dedicated to James Lipton, whom I would have loved to send a copy. Alas, he passed away in 2020. Thank you for your inspiration and your passion for collective nouns among so many other things. There are 11 new collective nouns." Among the new collective nouns are "A Fiasco of Winos", "A Singularity of Everything", and "A Detestation of Politicians". What fun! About James Lipton, wikipedia, 6/9/2021: "Louis James Lipton (September 19, 1926 – March 2, 2020) was an American writer, lyricist, actor, and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City. He was the executive producer, writer, and host of the Bravo cable television series Inside the Actors Studio, which debuted in 1994. He retired from the show in 2018." www.imdb.com (6/10/21): "A lover of words, Lipton has made a study of group terms, sometimes called nouns of multitude (examples: a gaggle of geese, a host of angels, etc.). He has published the definitive work on the subject in a best-selling book titled "An Exaltation of Larks". It has been in print continuously since its first edition in 1968. The latest edition, now expanded, contains over 1,100 such phrases. In the book Lipton himself jumps into the lexical fray by offering many new terms of his own invention, including: a score of bachelors, an unction of undertakers, a shrivel of critics, and a queue of actors." |
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Pain du Monde 14.5 x 11 x 0.5 inches, (37 x 28 x 1.25 cm); 13 pages. 140lbs rag paper with graphite frottages on vellum. Hard covers with quarter Kraft-tex leather binding. Title label on front board. Signed and numbered. Dirk Hagner: "A series of 11 exquisite graphite rubbings of breads from around the world. All pieces are one-of-kind images, gathered in a hand-made book binding. This project combines the oldest cultural staple of human kind, bread, with the oldest way of printmaking, rubbings, or as printmakers call it, frottage*." Using printmaking and rubbings, Hagner presents a lovely visual discourse of bread of the world. It is a reminder of how much bread and the partaking of it together is so much apart of the many cultures of our world. This simple act of sharing bread has a sense of friendliness and comfortable interaction whether it is a bagel, a baguette, or a bun. *Frottage, Wikipedia: “In frottage, the artist places a piece of paper over an uneven surface then marks the paper with a drawing tool (such as a pastel or pencil), thus creating a rubbing. The drawing can be left as it is or used as the basis for further refinement. While superficially similar to brass rubbing and other forms of rubbing intended to reproduce an existing subject, and in fact sometimes being used as an alternative term for it, frottage implies using this rubbing technique to create an original image. “It was developed by surrealist artist Max Ernst in 1925. Ernst was inspired by an ancient wooden floor where the grain of the planks had been accentuated by many years of scrubbing. The patterns of the graining suggested strange images to him. He captured these by laying sheets of paper on the floor and then rubbing over them with a soft pencil.” |
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| Systemic Things – Because Things Are The Way They Are They Won't Stay The Way They Are |
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By Dirk Hagner 6.25 x 6.5 x .375 inches closed (16 x 16.5 x 1 cm); 13 1/8 x 6.5 x 6 inches open (33.3 x 16.5 x 15.25 cm). 9 colors, two-sided screen prints on black paper. Duplex green / dark-gray cover boards. Bound with Kraftex leather strip. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "Systemic racism has been with our country before its independence. Not even to mention genocide and slavery. All these were part of the founder's principles of thought and the foundation of our county's economy from its start. Despite of a civil war fought and won against slavery, racism in the United States is rampant and ubiquitous. "However, this is not only an American issue, it is a huge worldwide human problem." Half of the artist's proceeds will go to the Southern Poverty Law Center. |
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Dreifuss, Tripod, SanZuWu 18 x 4.5 inches when folded (44.7 x 11.5 2.5cm); displays to 18 inches tall x 58.5 inches long (44.7 x 148.5 cm). Accordion structure. Gold paper chine collé, screen printing, and letterpress. Screen printed on gold Mulberry paper and rag. Signed and numbered by the artist. The work features a poem by Frank Bolles - "The crow". Bolles (b?lz) (1856-1894) was an American essayist and poet. Dirk Hagner: "The book's title is given in three languages, all meaning the same thing. 'Tripod' in English, 'Dreifuss' in German, and 'SanZuWu' in Chinese. "The interest in this piece arises from mixing far Eastern mythology with Western poetic sentiment, and avoiding the Western notion of associating crows with bad tidings. The project combines a traditional dividing screen look with contemporary typography. "In Chinese mythology and culture, the three-legged crow is called the sanzuwu. Even though it is described as a crow or raven, it is usually colored red instead of black. It is also known as the 'golden crow' or the 'sun crow'. "According to folklore, there were originally ten sun crows which settled in 10 separate suns. They perched on a red mulberry tree in the East at the foot of the Valley of the Sun. The tree was said to have many mouths opening from its branches. Each day one of the sun crows would be rostered to travel around the world on a carriage, driven by Xihe the 'mother' of the suns. As soon as one sun crow returned, another one would set forth in its journey crossing the sky. "The sun crows would often descend from heaven on to the earth and feast on the grasses of immortality, but Xihe did not like this thus she covered their eyes to prevent them from doing so. One day, at around 2170 BC, all ten sun crows came out on the same day, causing the world to burn; Houyi the celestial archer saved the day by shooting down all but one of the sun crows." |
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Fallen 4 x 8.25 inches, (10 x 21 cm). Duplex covers in red/gray and blue/gray, leather binding strip. Letterpress and screen printing in 7 colors/shades. Deckle edge 140 gm rag paper. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "Varied accordion fold-out artist book on the state of American democracy in 2020." |
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Spring Swan Displayed the book measures 10 x 14 x 6.5 inches (25.4 x 35.5 x 16.5 cm), when closed 14 x 7 x 0.3 inches (35.5 x 18 x 0.75 cm). Screen printed. Numbered. Signed with Hagner stamp. Laid in flat case. Dirk Hagner: "This book is using a fold-up that is found commonly used in a wine case and which serves as a bottle separator. The book covers are foldable so that they become the display stand of the book. Five interlocking cut shapes become a dimensional display, made from duplex board, each panel carrying a line from Charles Bukowski's poem 'Spring Swan'."
$1,100 |
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Pleated Tidings 13.75 x 5.125" closed, extends to 13.75 x 44". Vertical accordion. Woodcut in 3 colors. Letterpress text on 250 gms rag paper. Bound in paper-covered boards with twine wrap closure. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "This a vertical accordion book … features a quote from William Butler Yeats: 'I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly for you tread on my dreams.' "The back of this piece folds into a horizontal triangle that acts like a stand-off when the book is pinned through aligned eyelet holes to a wall - its intended way of display." |
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| Ship of Fools: High Crimes and Biggly Misdemeanors | |
By Dirk Hagner 6 x 8 x .5" with aluminum spiral binding on all sides. Black covers. Rusted steel plate on front cover. Laid in lidded black box 8.75 x 10.75" with titles in white lettering. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "A guide for imbecilic leaders unencumbered by the thought process. Coal-black covers with rusted steel cover plate, and a stable genius aluminum spiral binding. Simple no-elite design, type in ALL CAPS. ... Perfect for small hands and small minds. Comes in a dedicated box. Sorry — no free hats." |
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| Dagger Quotation by William Shakespeare Book design by Dirk Hagner San Juan Capistrano, California: Dirk Hagner, [2016]. Edition of 15. 11.75 x 4"; single opening. Letterpress printed. Bound in black-paper-covered boards with title in red on front board. Triangular pull out on back board for displaying upright. Laid in white two piece craft box with title on lid. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "The subject is Shakespeare's 'Is this a dagger I see before me?' from Macbeth." $535 |
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| Koan By Dirk Hagner San Juan Capistrano, California: Dirk Hagner, 2014. Edition of 35. Triangular shaped book: 5 x 5 7" closed: 5 x 42" extended. Printed on 250 gms 100% rag paper. Bound in paper covered boards with ribbon tie closures. In black lidded box. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "This new artist book is a americanized play on one of the most well-known koans of Zen Buddhism. It reads: "When you meet the Buddha on the road, driving a Chevy, kill him!" $300 |
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Sengai's Universe
$450 |
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| Where? By Dirk Hagner San Juan Capistrano, California: Dirk Hagner, [n.d.]. Edition of 25. 5.75 x 3.75 closed, extends to 24.5 x 15.5". Letterpress printed on 100% cotton paper. Bound in paper-covered boards. Laid in black storage box with title printed in white and handwritten edition number on lid. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "Wordplay on the Buddhist notion that there is no 'there' - only a 'here.' Whenever one gets 'there' one is actually 'here.' Tomatoes, potatoes ..., either, neither ..." $350 |
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Wislawa |
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| Dirk Hagner SOLD / Out of print Titles: | |
9 Fugues in RGB 11.5 x 14.5 x 0.5 inches / 37 x 30 x 1.7 cm; 12 pages (9 prints, title page, dedication page, colophon). Images hand-printed on rag paper. Letterpress printed with large wood type in 7 colors. Relief etchings for debossing. All prints signed and numbered by the artist. Bound in paper over boards with title printed on front cover. Black end sheets. Dirk Hagner: "This series of work consists out of full color prints on the subject of immigration, combined with common computer error codes often encountered. Most of us probably have gotten a '404' response on the web, the error code for 'page not found'. While the numbers are taken from the standard list of codes, titles of the codes were changed to more pertinent keywords and combined with blind embossed portraits of immigrants highlighting their plight. "Current political trends invalidate human beings and particularly poor immigrants and refugees of color. Their humanity is reduced to inconsequential disposable errors. It is a human tragedy." There are nine prints in the "Immigration Error Codes" series. Each image was printed in an edition of 18. Five sets of the edition of 18 have been bound into artist books. |
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American Totentanz Statement: "Although Hans Holbein der Jüngere published the popular theme of 'Totentanz' (Dance of Death) over 490 years ago in 1526 as a series of small woodcuts in book form in Southern Germany, the 'Danse Macabre' theme first appeared in Germany and France in the 14th century. The 'Totentanz' depicts persons from all walks of society, from the elites to the masses, as death teases and beckons them to follow along in the dance into the grave. It is a reminder that at the end we are all mortal, that death is the great equalizer. "Since then, there has been a recurring tradition in music and poetry as well as the visual and performing arts to periodically revisit this theme in a contemporary context. Strangely enough, there appears to be no such tradition in American art and to many people in the United States, the subject remains unfamiliar. "In his print series 'AMERICAN TOTENTANZ', Master Printmaker Dirk Hagner presents a contemporary version of this ageless theme. Hagner’s project, over 3 years in the making is composed of 24 scenes of woodcuts in up to 8 colors, and was released two prints at a time. The suite pairs sets of 2 prints, each including one line of a simple rhyming couplet that links the prints together. "The suite does not follow the sequence or quantity of Holbein’s 'Totentanz' exactly. As is to be expected, many of the characters important in Holbein’s time have changed, and are no longer relevant in our lives today. However, some have remained the same over the centuries. As Death was frequently depicted appearing with a musical instrument, Hagner follows that tradition using American instruments when possible." |
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Apparently with no surprise 15 x 11.5" (38 x 29.25 cm); 20 pages. Collagraphs. Chine collé. Letterpress printed with debossed running text. Screen printing. Bound in paper over boards with leather spine. Front cover with printed titles and black glyph illustration. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "This large format case-bound book reflects on COVID-19 and is based on a poem by Emily Dickinson which she wrote in 1880, 'Apparently with no surprise'. "This time around the 'blonde assassin' on stage is played by the red-crested corona virus upstart. The sun proceeds but is unmoved. Life is often cruel and death can be random and unexpected, with God paring her fingernails while it all happens. "The book's pages follow the 8 lines of the poem, cutting up the words in several ways, and reassembling the pieces with collagraphs and chine collé, employing debossed running text printed in letterpress. Flat color screen printing was chosen for the large fleuron (derived from the old French: floron, flower, here representing a stylized ivy leaf), an old punctuation mark or glyph used in typographic compositions." |
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BOOTS 23.75 x 9.5" closed, extends to 162"; 16 pages. Accordion structure with removable red paper spine. Woodcuts. Paper covered boards. Signed and numbered by the artist. Dirk Hagner: "The unjust war started by the Bush and Blair administrations against Iraq in 2003 continue to haunt and affect everybody who is alive today. If directly involved or not does not make any difference: We all are affected by the immense suffering and the consequences of the war and what it has brought home. It has been estimated that over 1.2 million people were killed during that war, and millions more maimed, physically and mentally. As a result of the war the killing in Iraq goes unabated. While the Masters of War enjoy their lavish retirements tens of thousands of American vets returned physically or mentally disabled, never to fit into society again, their minds and bodies spoiled by what they saw, what they did, and what was done to them. There are no numbers on the psychologically and bodily afflicted Iraqis, but we know it must be multiples of the killed and maimed. "While artists used to glorify war for their patrons through history, this changed with printmakers such as Callot, Goya, and Dix a long time ago. Ever since then artists, and printmakers in particular, have spoken out against human depravity and documented the impact war has on us. "This work consists of three reduction woodcuts, each overprinted by a screen print. Next to the panels run woodcut panels of Lee Hazelwood's 'Boots' lyrics."
(SOLD/Out of Print) |
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Page last update: 09.04.2024
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