Starting with Käthe Kollwitz's and Mona Hatoum's works, we take a new look at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld collection and present works that can be read as points of view. What they have in common is that they are resistant to what exists. Counter-images of the here and now are juxtaposed with works that directly criticize the current situation.

WENTRUP is pleased to present "Praise Berlin," our third solo exhibition with Los Angeles based artist Karl Haendel. This new body of work focuses on contemporary religious diversity and practice in Berlin and is following the project “Praise New York” which took place in spring at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in New York. In a series of large-scale, realistic drawings depicting the hands of some of the city’s most inspiring Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim leaders, Haendel pays homage to a diverse group of pastors, imams, rabbis and priests. As much this project is about religious diversity, it is also about ethnic and racial diversity. Berlin is growing more diverse as immigrants arrive. Besides its Catholic and protestant residents, there is large Muslim population, growing communities of Buddhists and Hindus, and a small but vibrant community of Jews. Highlighting how these communities of believers are vibrant, welcoming, and tolerant, the artist hopes to provide space for viewers to reassess their own systems of belief, embrace complexity, and expand their acceptance.

Early last year, Vielmetter Los Angeles presented “Karl Haendel: Double Dominant” featuring a series of photorealistic drawings by Karl Haendel. He portrayed fellow Los Angeles artists whose work inspires him, capturing the dominant hand used in creating their work. “If you take a quick glance at one of these drawings, it looks like a right and left hand. Look more closely and you realize that’s not the case–it’s the same hand, and it’s somehow interleaved with itself,” Haendel wrote about the series. African American artists Edgar Arceneaux, EJ Hill, and Rodney McMillian are among the figures he featured. One of the works, “Double Dominant 4 (Rodney McMillian)” (2018), was recently acquired by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

From May 27, 2021 to January 30, 2022, the EDF Group Foundation presents Fake News: Art, Fiction, Mensonge, an unprecedented exhibition in France bringing together the works of French and international artists who alert and question the proliferation of false information in our world hyperconnected while challenging our critical thinking. Born from a collective commission brought together by Laurence Lamy, General Delegate of the Foundation, this exhibition offers an artistic and educational stroll between reality, interpretation and perception to understand and decipher the mechanics of false information.

Los Angeles-based artist Karl Haendel leverages his practice of large-scale, exquisitely executed pencil drawings to highlight the achievements of individuals overcoming immense physical hurdles. Some of the individuals pictured are professional athletes and others are relatable figures simply enjoying their freedom to move. All have used the loss of limbs not as a limitation but as a stepping stone for greater physical achievement, asking us to reexamine our customary understanding of athletic prowess and corporal perfection. The artist writes about his work:

My practice revolves around the appropriation of visual signifiers and their recontextualization through drawing. I use drawing to symbolically align myself with labor, while also invoking a basic human impulse to leave a mark. I remove images and texts from their original contexts and reconfigure them through graphite, scale and juxtaposition into a new form of visual language. I use this language to explore how our culture uses images to produce opinions, values, and beliefs and how the images we produce reflexively re-shape these frameworks.

100 Drawings from Now is an exhibition and benefit event supporting participating artists and The Drawing Center. Featuring drawings made by an international group of artists since early 2020, 100 Drawings from Now provides a snapshot of artistic production during a period of profound global unrest that has resulted from the ongoing health and economic crises, as well as a surge of activism in response to systemic racism, social injustice, and police brutality in the United States. 

A conversation between artist Karl Haendel and Leah Levy, director of The Jay DeFeo Foundation, moderated by Claire Gilman, chief curator of The Drawing Center, on the occasion of Karl Haendel & Jay DeFeo: Pink Cup and The Facts at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NY. 

Karl Haendel is included in Kunsthalle Bielefeld's exhibition, Unsere Amerikaner (Our Americans). 

LAxART is pleased to present a collaborative exhibition by Karl Haendel and Tony Lewis. This exhibition developed out of conversations around the possibilities of drawing as a personal, material, and metaphoric practice, an ongoing dialogue largely began when Lewis was Haendel’s student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since that time, the artists have continued an exchange around their respective approaches to drawing and this exhibition marks the first time such dialogues have been made public. The selected works reflect a shared interest in figuration, social conduct, familial relations, the efficacy of communication, and drawing as a personal and idiosyncratic language.

The 2015 Biennial of the Americas, kicking off July 14 and continuing through August 30, today announces additional inspiring and innovative public programs and partnerships with featured local and international institutions. Hosted in Denver, the Biennial of the Americas is an international festival of ideas, art and culture. The most inspiring artists, innovators and experts will explore the theme “NOW!,” examining today’s exceptional times in the Western Hemisphere.

The Biennial of the Americas connects business, art, culture and civic leaders from throughout the Americas by building lasting relationships, addressing shared issues and inspiring action.
 

Produced specifically for the Sign Show, "Plow Pose" investigates I-70 message themes including lifestyle, athletics, religion, and masculinity. The ambiguous composition—is the man restrained by or bursting out of the space?—invites viewers to think about representations of the human body on other billboards and in advertising generally. Haendel's piece also subtly engages its agricultural site in presenting a classic yoga position named for its resemblance to traditional Indian and Tibetan farming equipment.

"Plow Pose" continues a body of work Haendel generated from commercial photographs of women doing yoga, currently on view at Night Gallery in Los Angeles.

Never before has the fall season for the Castello di Rivoli been so full of events and important exhibitions. Among these is one of the most comprehensive the Museum has ever conceived, installed in both the spacious Manica Lunga and in the third-floor rooms of the Sabauda Residence. The event – Manifest Intention. Drawing In All Its Forms – focuses on drawing in its various forms and many modes of expression: from everyday and self-controlled practice to elements of analysis and creative outlets, from a means of communication to the need to express. The absolute protagonist of the exhibition, drawing also proposes a broader reflection on themes that over time have shaped the very concept of a museum and a collection, analyzing the medium’s context both as a sign of the work and as the work itself. Drawing, oftentimes hidden or kept in the shadows, is actually the common ground of artistic practice – be it a sketch, a project, or even a work that is finished and laden with messages.