Karl Haendel engages the long process of language building. His exacting drawings are the idioms that he deploys to assemble his syntactical, room-filling installations and architectural display conceits. The result is a gathering of hand-drawn images that when selectively juxtaposed with each other form a visual analogy that is similar to literary enterprises. For example, clusters of varied graphite-wrought images suggest humorous self-deprecating free verse or complex prose punctuated with neologisms, metaphors and popular signs.
More simply, Haendel uses his drawings as words and punctuation, referring to each drawing in his visual vocabulary as a ‘concept /image/ word’. (…) Haendel appropriates, copies and remakes images into new representations.
These found images or photographs of found things are enlarged, often to near monumental scale when translated into drawings. They are always graphically rendered in the shades and tonal values intrinsic to black and white photography. They are also negligibly edited and cropped but rarely to the point where they could be mistaken for an original composition. As fodder for elasticizing representation, his ever-multiplying oeuvre of pencil renderings nevertheless resist all systems of classification. Neither indexical nor random, images of medieval knights, studio paraphernalia, kosher salt packaging, cartoons, explorers, broken mirrors, newspaper clippings, doodles, and hard-edge abstractions all stand ready to be pressed into service. Labour is also content in Haendel’s drawings. It is indicated in the scale, quantity and ambition of his project, and in the accumulation of line, the trace of the hand, and the physical build-up of graphite. Haendel’s dedication to hard work, diligence and manual labour imbues his found and appropriated imagery, giving a tribute-like quality to many of his compositions. His slow and painstaking process evinced in each drawing correlates to his conviction in critical reading and active interpretation. We construct meaning, opinions and belief systems through the consumption of signs and images, and Haendel’s drawing project slows down the process for us, exposing the bias and speed inherent in the information industry. At the same time, his drawings also underscore the pleasures of study and interpretation in a cultural field of infinite signs.
(This text is written by Michelle Grabner and published in „Vitamin D2, New Persepectives in Drawing“, Phaidon, p. 116-119.)
Karl Haendel (*1976 in New York) lives and works in Los Angeles.
He was part of The Drawing Biennial, London, UK (2019) | The Biennial of the Americas (2015) | Whitney Biennial, US (2014) | 12th Biennale de Lyon, FR (2013) | Prospect New Orleans 2, New Orleans, US (2011) and the Sao Paulo Biennial, BR (2011) | 2008 California Biennial, New Port Beach, US (2008).
Notable institutional solo exhibitions include: LAXArt in Los Angeles, US (2016) | Museo de Arte de El Salvador, SV (2013)| The Box at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, US (2012) | Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, US (2013) | Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, US (2006).
He was part in group exhibitions in institutions such as: MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, US (2023) | FLAG Art Foundation, New York, US (2022) | The Drawing Center, New York, US (2020) | Palais Populaire, Berlin, DE (2018) | Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK (2018) | The Drawing Room, London, UK (2018) | MASI Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, IT (2018) | Kunsthalle Emden, DE (2017) | Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, NL (2017) | Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, US (2017) | Kunsthalle Bielefeld, DE (2017 | Museum Contemporary Art, Denver, US (2015) | Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, NO (2015) | Castello di Rivoli, Turin, IT (2014) | MOCA Cleveland, US (2012) | Aspen Art Museum, US (2012) | The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, US (2012) | Muse d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice, FR (2011) | Guggenheim Museum, New York, US (2010) | The New Museum, New York, US (2010)
Haendel's works are part of the public collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, CN | Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, NO | Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt, DE | Guggenheim Museum, New York, US | Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, US | Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, FR / San Francisco, US | Kunsthalle Bielefeld, DE | Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, US | Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, US | Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, US | Museum of Modern Art, New York, US | Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, IT | Sammlung Wemhöner, Berlin, DE | Perez Art Museum, Miami, US | Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, US | Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US.
