Friedrich Kunath
The Temptation To Exist (May Contain Nuts)
March 15 - April 26, 2014
Opening reception: Friday, March 14, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
The Temptation To Exist (May Contain Nuts) marks a notable evolution in Friedrich Kunath’s practice into a matured exploration of abstraction, interior sensation, and oppositional relationships that propel emotional experience. On the heels of a comprehensive monograph entitled In My Room, and a series of institutional exhibitions, Andrea Rosen Gallery is delighted to announce Kunath’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery.
Inextricably entwining the experience of the ordinary with the sublime, Kunath’s works jump between daydreams and “reality,” painterly surface and psychological interior. Through heightening the artifice and the sincerity of the narrative, both are shown to be essential. Playfully pushing every element to the limit of its emotionality and capacity for meaning, Kunath reveals the deflative qualities of a climax, and simultaneously suggests that certain new truths can be revealed through, as the writer David Berman describes, “knowing which dimension of an uninteresting thing is actually interesting.” The act is an embrace of existence – both vibrant and mundane. An invitation into a perpetual joke.
Within the landscape of the exhibition, one is met first with nostalgia, and then, as though slipping into a fever dream, invited to wander the juxtaposed realms of past and future, elegance and decay, the bucolic and the strange. The images build upon themselves in a layered stream of consciousness driven by the autobiographical, the conceptual and the emotional. Here, elements individually familiar, in unison, now propose a kaleidoscopic view of reality.
“Somewhere in these oppositions lies the aesthetic possibility of slipping on a banana peel” – Friedrich Kunath
“Too late for fruit, too soon for flowers” – Walter de la Mare
Friedrich Kunath was born in Chemnitz, Germany, in 1974, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His exhibition Friedrich Kunath: A Plan to Follow Summer Around the World, is currently on view at the Centre d'art contemporain d'Ivry - le Crédac through March 23rd, 2014, and a forthcoming exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Bremerhaven, Germany, will be on view from September 16 – November 2, 2014. Recent solo shows include Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2012), Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2011), Hammer Art Museum, Los Angeles (2010), the Kunstverein Hannover (2009), and the Aspen Art Museum (2008). Kunath was included in the 55th Carnegie International, Pittsburg. He is a recipient of the Peter Mertes Stipendium, Bonner Kunstverein, Germany (2001) and the Jürgen Ponto-Foundation Stipend, Frankfurt (2005).
For media inquiries contact: Lance Brewer at l.brewer@rosengallery.com or Jen Joy at jen@suttonpr.com
In My Room is a major new publication surveying the work of artist Friedrich Kunath. It encompasses the last five years of Kunath's practice and is an extension of his unique aesthetic.
Complex and playful installations of paintings, sculptures and videos feature a cornucopia of imagery, brought together from such diverse sources as Old Master paintings, slapstick cartoons, anthropomorphized animals, and pop iconography from the 1960s and 70s.
A narrative around the emotional life of the artist is enacted through fictional characters, producing an in-between world filled with both humour and pathos. The catalogue is designed by Yvonne Quirmbach in close collaboration with the artist. New essays come from Michael Bracewell, Ory Dessau, Claire Le Restif, and Paul Luckraft.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Friedrich Kunath: Raymond Moody's Blues at Modern Art Oxford, 21 September – 17 November 2013.
Publisher: Walther König, Köln (February 28, 2014)
ISBN-10: 3863354427
ISBN-13: 978-3863354428
This is Friedrich Kunath's first artist book published in the United States. In making the book, Kunath collaborated with the musician and poet David Berman and photographer Michael Schmelling.
You Owe Me a Feeling was produced alongside Kunath’s solo exhibition at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles: 2012′s Lacan’s Haircut.
Publisher: Blum & Poe (March 31, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0966350340
ISBN-13: 978-0966350340
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Things We Did When We Were Dead at BQ, Berlin, April 28 - June 30, 2012.
Published on the occassion of the artist's first solo exhibition in the UK, at White Cube Hoxton Square, April 15 - June 3, 2011.
Publisher: White Cube (June 2, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1906072450
ISBN-13: 978-1906072452
Artist book, published on the occassion of the exhibition I used to be darker, but then I got lighter and then I got dark again, at Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo, May 13 - June 12, 2010.
In his drawings, texts, objects, photographs, and videos, Friedrich Kunath deals with such themes as longing, melancholy, loneliness, wanderlust, and wistfulness from a subjective viewpoint that finds expression in titles like Homesick, I am a stranger here or I may not always love you. He combines personal life experiences with literary, musical, or art historical references into visual, ironic commentaries in various media. The installative total context of his exhibitions forms narrative contexts between the individual pieces that lead to the viewer to a fantastic world of associations.
This catalogue is published on the occasion of Kunath’s solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Hannover, November 28, 2009–January 24, 2010.
Publisher: Sternberg Press (July 15, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1933128925
ISBN-13: 978-1933128924
Artist book: set of 32 color postcards in box. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Hello walls at BQ, Berlin, Sept. 4 - Oct. 31, 2009.
Extracts from "In someone's shadow" by Rod McKuen on verso of postcards.
This is the artist's first monograph, published concurrently with his first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. at the Aspen Art Museum.
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Aspen Art Press (February 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0934324441
ISBN-13: 978-0934324441
Artist book, published on the occassion of the exhibition Warum, at BQ, Cologne, January 19 - March 10, 2007.
Artist book, published on the occasion of the exhibition Our Endless Numbered Days at BQ, Cologne, 2004.
Artist book, published on the occasion of the exhibition of the Dirk Bell / Friedrich E. Kunath exhibiton Why are my friends such finks, at BQ, Cologne October 31, 1998 - January 30, 1999.
2013-2014
acrylic and oil on canvas
79 x 63 x 1.5 inches
(200.7 x 160 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2014-017
2014
Persian rug, wood, cardboard, polystyrene
foam, aqua-resin, fiberglass and acrylic paint
101 x 24 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches
(256.5 x 62.2 x 54.6 cm)
ARG# KF2014-002
2014
acrylic, oil and spray paint on canvas
60 x 46 x 1 1/4 inches
(152.4 x 116.8 x 3.2 cm)
ARG# KF2014-028
2013
Pencil on canvas
68 x 47 x 1.5 inches
(172.7 x 119.4 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2013-058
2013-2014
acrylic and oil on canvas
79 x 63 x 1.5 inches
(200.7 x 160 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2014-017
2013-2014
acrylic and oil on canvas
79 x 63 x 1.5 inches
(200.7 x 160 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2014-016
2013-2014
acrylic and oil on canvas
79 x 63 x 1.5 inches
(200.7 x 160 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2014-019
2013-2014
acrylic and oil on canvas
79 x 63 x 1.5 inches
(200.7 x 160 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2014-018
2013-2014
acrylic and oil on canvas
79 x 63 x 1.5 inches
(200.7 x 160 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2014-020
2014
Acrylic, oil, spray paint and pencil
60 x 46 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches
(152.4 x 118.1 x 3.2 cm)
ARG# KF2014-010
Gomer Pyle
2014
Pencil and charcoal on canvas
61 x 46 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches
(154.9 x 118.1 x 3.2 cm)
ARG# KF2014-031
2014
Acrylic, oil, spray paint and pencil
68 x 45 x 1 1/4 inches
(172.7 x 114.3 x 3.2 cm)
ARG# KF2014-012
2014
Acrylic and pencil on canvas
61 x 43 x 1 1/4 inches
(154.9 x 109.2 x 3.2 cm)
ARG# KF2014-027
2014
Persian rug, wood, cardboard, polystyrene
foam, aqua-resin, fiberglass and acrylic paint
51 x 22 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches
(129.5 x 57.2 x 57.2 cm)
ARG# KF2014-007
2014
Persian rug, wood, cardboard, polystyrene
foam, aqua-resin, fiberglass and acrylic paint
100 x 21 x 21 inches (254 x 53.3 x 53.3 cm)
ARG# KF2014-001
2014
Persian rug, wood, cardboard, polystyrene
foam, aqua-resin, fiberglass and acrylic paint
77 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 24 1/2 inches
(196.9 x 62.2 x 62.2 cm)
ARG# KF2014-006
2014
Persian rug, wood, cardboard, polystyrene
foam, aqua-resin, fiberglass and acrylic paint
64 1/2 x 25 x 25 inches
(163.8 x 63.5 x 63.5 cm)
ARG# KF2014-004
2013-2014
acrylic and oil on canvas
79 x 63 x 1.5 inches
(200.7 x 160 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2014-015
2014
Acrylic on canvas
20 x 16 x 7/8 inches
(50.8 x 40.6 x 2.2 cm)
ARG# KF2014-042
2014
Acrylic and ink on muslin on canvas
30 x 24 inches
(76.2 x 61 cm)
ARG# KF2014-038
2013
acrylic and oil on canvas
95.5 x 133 x 2 inches
(242.6 x 337.8 x 5.1 cm)
ARG# KF2013-050
I Needed That
2014
acrylic, silkscreen and ink on canvas
78 x 58 x 1.5 inches
(198.1 x 147.3 x 3.8 cm)
ARG# KF2014-036
2014
acrylic and pencil on canvas
39 x 21 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches
(99.1 x 54.6 x 3.2 cm) (I Dreamed a Dream)
41 x 21 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches
(104.1 x 54.6 x 3.2 cm) (That You Were Gone)
ARG# KF2014-024
2014
acrylic on canvas
108 x 96 x 2 inches
(274.3 x 243.8 x 5.1 cm)
ARG# KF2014-014