In 2025, Kunstverein Braunschweig presented the first institutional retrospective of artist Sine Hansen, who lived in the city for many years. Hansen had moved to Braunschweig to study at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, where she was enrolled from 1961 to 1966, and the city remained her home ever after. Art-historically, only a few attempts have been made to position Hansen within the German postwar avant-garde. The exhibition at Kunstverein Braunschweig offered a comprehensive overview of her work, spanning from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. It focused primarily on paintings and screen prints that clearly trace her stylistic development.

In her practice, Hansen isolated mass-produced everyday objects—such as tools and technical devices—placing them against intense, monochrome backgrounds and presenting them as stylized, monumental icons. She became particularly known for her depictions of pliers, which she painted in a variety of versions, including the series Spannungszangen (1974–1979), which formed a central focus of the exhibition. These works possess a psychological dimension that runs throughout her entire oeuvre. Another example shown in the exhibition was the screen print Bohrer mit Birne (1970), presented on the occasion of the now out-of-print Braunschweiger Mappe, which was part of the 1971 annual editions.

Characteristic of Hansen’s work is the juxtaposition of mechanical and fragile objects—a tension that already early on revealed the dramaturgical force present throughout her practice. All proceeds will go toward the realization of a monographic publication on Sine Hansen, supporting the long-term visibility of this important artistic position from Braunschweig.