When I was googling myself – as one does – I came across a newspaper article in the New York Times from 1986. It reported on a small-time crook with the same name as me: Vincent Hannwacker. A state employee who sold office supplies and furniture from his office during business hours and was eventually busted. The article reads like the plot of a Coen-brothers movie or gangster pulp novel, complete with "undercover detectives posing as businessmen".
Reading the article and the bizarre feeling of seeing my name at the center of an 80s New York crime story, I asked myself, who was this man? The only namesake I could find on the internet. In my work, I want to revive this unnoticed side note from almost 40 years ago, to search for traces of my criminal doppelganger. With the help of slides from my father, who was in New York at the same time, and excerpts from the original article, I want to tell the story of Vincent Hannwacker, "the man who was supposed to mind the store but ended up selling it".
shown at
Diploma Exhibition, Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Munich, 2024