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	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.

	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
	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