Karl Haendel
26 May - 28 Jun 2012
KARL HAENDEL
Informal Family Blackmail
26 May - 28 June 2012
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present an installation with new drawings, a book and a film by Karl Haendel.
A complex installation of walls, doorways and backrooms reconfigures the flow of the gallery’s architecture and serves as a backdrop for a psychologically layered exhibition. Revolving around emotions of insecurity, doubt and regret, the works in the exhibition respond to larger socio-economic shifts that are changing both the relationships between the sexes and the generational roles of parents and children. Haendel’s film “Questions to my Father”, a key work in the exhibition, features a range of young men asking questions that they would have liked to ask their fathers but never did. Carefully constructed, the film features these men head on, each asking one question at a time, in clustered groupings of questions that relate to each other. As the film progresses, a more coherent impression both of the sons and their fathers emerges. The film feels both honest and awkward at times as topics that are transcending the personal turn into a seismograph of a larger social and political framework.
Alternating impressions of honesty and shame also permeate the drawings and the installation of a small, enclosed room with a table and a book at the very entrance of the gallery. Here, as in earlier exhibitions, Haendel juxtaposes images chosen from pop culture, news media, as well as texts from newspaper headlines to create a canon of voices where meaning and a larger sense of a personal and political reality emerges in the gaps between images. Haendel is not afraid to address classic philosophical ideas and conundrums, such as Change, Hope, Fear, Search, and Doubt.
Karl Haendel earned his MFA at UCLA in 2003. Recent solo exhibitions include Yvon Lambert, Paris, France, Harris Lieberman, New York, NY, Lever House, New York, NY, and a “MOCA Focus Series” solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; the Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver, Canada ; the Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, FL; the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Bienal Pavillion, São Paulo, Brazil; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; the Drawing Center, New York, NY; “Prospect II”, New Orleans, LA; the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; the New Museum, New York, NY; the Fundación/Colección Jumex, Mexico; the Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; in the 2008 and 2004 California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; among others. This is Karl Haendel’s second solo exhibition at the gallery.
Informal Family Blackmail
26 May - 28 June 2012
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present an installation with new drawings, a book and a film by Karl Haendel.
A complex installation of walls, doorways and backrooms reconfigures the flow of the gallery’s architecture and serves as a backdrop for a psychologically layered exhibition. Revolving around emotions of insecurity, doubt and regret, the works in the exhibition respond to larger socio-economic shifts that are changing both the relationships between the sexes and the generational roles of parents and children. Haendel’s film “Questions to my Father”, a key work in the exhibition, features a range of young men asking questions that they would have liked to ask their fathers but never did. Carefully constructed, the film features these men head on, each asking one question at a time, in clustered groupings of questions that relate to each other. As the film progresses, a more coherent impression both of the sons and their fathers emerges. The film feels both honest and awkward at times as topics that are transcending the personal turn into a seismograph of a larger social and political framework.
Alternating impressions of honesty and shame also permeate the drawings and the installation of a small, enclosed room with a table and a book at the very entrance of the gallery. Here, as in earlier exhibitions, Haendel juxtaposes images chosen from pop culture, news media, as well as texts from newspaper headlines to create a canon of voices where meaning and a larger sense of a personal and political reality emerges in the gaps between images. Haendel is not afraid to address classic philosophical ideas and conundrums, such as Change, Hope, Fear, Search, and Doubt.
Karl Haendel earned his MFA at UCLA in 2003. Recent solo exhibitions include Yvon Lambert, Paris, France, Harris Lieberman, New York, NY, Lever House, New York, NY, and a “MOCA Focus Series” solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; the Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver, Canada ; the Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, FL; the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Bienal Pavillion, São Paulo, Brazil; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; the Drawing Center, New York, NY; “Prospect II”, New Orleans, LA; the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; the New Museum, New York, NY; the Fundación/Colección Jumex, Mexico; the Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; in the 2008 and 2004 California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; among others. This is Karl Haendel’s second solo exhibition at the gallery.