Samuel Henne, untitled (note to self) at ad/ad – Project Space, Hannover

untitled (note to self) by Samuel Henne, curated by ad/ad – Project Space, at ad/ad – Project Space, Hannover, 06/09/2025 – 21/10/2025.

Who speaks, who listens? A fragmented phrase drifts before our eyes, half monologue, half question, and we find ourselves wondering: is this “note to self” addressed to a future version of us, to someone else, or to an unresolved shard within? In that suspended silence between word and image, we feel a soft rustle of unspoken thoughts, as if overhearing the tremor of something deep within. It is precisely there, on that threshold, that our visit begins.

The space at ad/ad – Project Space receives the project with quiet restraint, the lighting is soft, directional, never invasive, the white walls, luminous but not blinding, allow text and image to surface like islands. There is no marked path, we zigzag between works, pause, retrace our steps, stopping where the suspension of language holds us still.

The exhibition unfolds as a current, leaping from loose sheets to wall installations to textual fragments, each element converses with the next, and at times, answers itself. In one corner, a phrase murmurs cautious thoughts, in another, a visual fragment seems to crack, questioning its own reflection. The works inhabit the space with understated force, free of imposed hierarchies, weaving a fabric of simultaneous presences. The “self” glimmers in the background, not always legible, as a shifting entity refracted through the page.

There is no crowd, no clamor, only a discreet nearness, glances quickening, then slowing. In those secret moments, when someone pauses before a phrase that slips from meaning, we sense the exhibition breathing more deeply.

Samuel Henne’s visual language moves across media, paper, print, digital graphics, with occasional manual interventions. The texts appear fragmented, sometimes unruly, like notebook jottings that have surfaced, eager to be seen. Some letters emerge, crossed out or layered, others seem to sink into the surface, as if the thought itself wished to remain hidden.

In this interplay of gesture and fragment, the choice to treat language as image proves crucial, meaning is no longer the goal, and text becomes something we must look at, not simply read. Familiar reading is destabilized, we move closer, decode, hover between clarity and disorientation.

Here, content deepens, the “self” is not a stable subject, but a fractured surface. The act of writing, erasing, rewriting, each gesture points us to an inner struggle, to identity’s multiplicity, to the ongoing dialogue with the other (who speaks? who listens?). Notes become warnings or pleas, image fragments suggest epiphanies abruptly cut short.

Though rooted in studio practice, Henne’s shift toward a more instinctive, immediate making is evident in the tensions left visible, the works feel unfinished in the best sense, charged with pauses, hesitations, and unresolved questions. In that unstable edge between thought and vision, Henne reveals his most honest urgency.

“note to self” clings to us like an echo, a reminder still unresolved. It’s as if we’ve left a part of ourselves behind, embedded in those barely sketched-out words.