Haendel’s series Knights (2011) is a set of impeccably drafted, nine-foot-tall pencil drawings depicting full suits of armor. The series riffs on previous investigations by the artist such as his meticulous depictions of masculine political figures, which included a headless J. Edgar Hoover and a Hitler head floating vulnerably in the center of a white expanse (Hitler’s iconic mustache was crafted from the artist’s pubic hair). Rendered in soft graphite, the imposing Knights embody the ostensibly conflicting ideals of chivalrous deference and invulnerable masculinity.
An expert draftsman well versed in semiotics, Karl Haendel strategically manipulates tangled visual, material, and textual themes, often to humorous and evocative effect. His juxtapositions are as resonant as they are unexpected, whether they take the form of layered graphite drawings, video, or installation. Haendel’s distinct brand of honest humor, honed in his current hometown of Los Angeles, is rooted in the rigorous studies he undertook at Brown University (BA), UCLA (MFA), and the Whitney Independent Study Program.
The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...
The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...
Hill of Poisonous Trees (three men) (2008) exemplifies the artist’s signature photo-weaving technique, in which he collects diverse found photographs—portraits of anonymous people, stills from blockbuster films, or journalistic images—cuts them into strips, and weaves them into new composition...
The artist describes the work as “very performative video-pieces but they take on a more sculptural feel...
The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources...
Forest Gathering N.2 is part of the series of photographs Beneath the Roses (2003-2005) where anonymous townscapes, forest clearings and broad, desolate streets are revealed as sites of mystery and wonder; similarly, ostensibly banal interiors become the staging grounds for strange human scenarios...
After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...
For I use to eat lemon meringue pie till I overloaded on my pancreas with sugar and passed out; It seemed to be a natural response to a society of abundance (1978), also known as the Bodybuilder series, Martinez asked male bodybuilding competitors to pose in whatever position felt “most natural.” They are obviously trained in presenting their ambitiously carved physiques, but their facial expressions seem comparatively unstudied...
Like many of his other sculptural works, the source of I am the Greatest is actually a historical photograph of an identical button pin from the 1960s...
The 10 $1 bills that make up From a Whisper to a Scream (2012) read like instructions in origami...
Shot in the streets of Tokyo, Collapse , is a meditation on the passing of time and on the complicated way in which we are smashed between the past and the future...
Will Rogan’s video Eraser (2014) shows a hearse parked in a clearing amidst leaf barren trees...
Shot in black and white and printed on a glittery carborundum surface, Black Hands, White Cotton both confronts and abstracts the subject of its title...
In his evocative Landscape Paintings, McMillian uses second-hand bedsheets, sourced from thrift shops, as his starting point...
Iron Sorrows (1990) brings together what are for Alexis Smith common motifs and materials such as scavenged and repurposed metal, and street signage...
Untitled (San Francisco) was made in Idaho in 1984 and was facetiously dedicated to Henry Hopkins, the then director of the San Francisco Museum of Art who added “modern” to its name...