Tim Van Laere Gallery is pleased to present its second solo exhibition of Friedrich Kunath. Friedrich Kunath’s work is permeated with ambiguity. His personal journey from East to West Berlin, towards his new-found home in Los Angeles presented Kunath with a wide variety of source material ranging from the canon of art history and German philosophy to the idiom of kitsch and the make-believe world of Hollywood and LA. Many of which are impacted by two poles—the culture of wisdom and popular culture—to the point of obsession and even, at times, systematization. Dealing with the universal themes of human existence, such as love, loss, optimism, vulnerability and melancholy, he serves a variety of media, ranging from painting, sculpture, drawing, video and photography, to expansive installations, all provided with a tragicomic pathos and dreams of possibilities. In almost every work, the realization is tangible that the world is a spectacle of unfulfilled dreams, in which the rawness of life is fled through the parallel universe of popular culture.

Friedrich Kunath was born in Chemnitz, Germany (1974) and lives and works in Los Angeles. His work has been exhibited widely and is featured in prominent public and private collections such as the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN.

Artists: FRIEDRICH KUNATH