Karl Haendel: Open Studio
The Chinati Foundation is pleased to announce an open studio with artist in residence Karl Haendel at the Locker Plant in downtown Marfa, this Thursday, March 29th, 2012 from 6:00 until 8:00 PM. Everyone is invited and there will be cold beer.
Haendel is a New York born artist living and working in Los Angeles. He makes drawings, large-scale installations, films, and books, and his uncanny facility with graphite is informed by a cagy picture editor’s view of the printed world.In his own words; “I don’t really like to say what is a worthy subject; it suggests that there is some sort of subject classification system out there that ranks suitable material, or that if I choose a subject, I can ordain “worthiness”. I usually just choose subjects that feel right, and I try to keep things honest and avoid being too clever. […] It’s sort of a way of going through life, of seeing the world, […] I come at it as more of a collector, a fan of obscurity and the obsolete”.
Haendel’s drawings are hand made reproductions of found images that capture the essence of their subject in a straightforward manner yet suggest a wry, unspoken running commentary. Scale is up for grabs, and the odd, funny, formal, or graphically charged subjects subvert obvious meaning and might just as easily refer to a personal narrative as a critique of mass consumption.
In works such as Questions for Marfa, or Questions for my Father or his recent book Shame, Haendel posits intimate or philosophical questions, and turns the answers into text-based pieces that are stark, cool, and revealing.
He has often shown his work in non-conventional, room-filling installations that are composed of multiple drawings, hung salon style, encouraging free flowing associations. Sited works such as the mural at United Artists LTD in Marfa, or Scribble (2009), a huge white chalk scrawl on the blackened side of a building in lower Manhattan (Broadway and Howard Streets), bring the message outside.
Haendel attended Brown University, participated in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York, and received his MFA from University of California at Los Angeles. A solo exhibition of his work was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2005, and Haendel has also been included in 100 Drawings, P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center (1999); California Biennial at Orange County Museum of Art (2004 and 2008); Lines, Grids, Stains, Words, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007); and This is Killing Me, Mass MOCA (2009).