124 - Friedrich Kunath (b. 1974)

Friedrich Kunath (b. 1974) I'm Really Into The World Lately 2015 Acrylic on canvas signed and dated on back 160 x 130 cm Provenance: > VNH Gallery, Paris > Private collection, Lausanne Exhibitions: > My Loneliness Shines, VNH Gallery, Paris, March 19 - April 30, 2016 The renaissance of German art Friedrich Kunath's colorful, narrative and figurative canvases are imbued with melancholy and nostalgia. This pervasive spleen is counterbalanced by touches of humor and irony. The artist explores a range of universal emotional experiences through a variety of techniques, including painting, drawing, installation, sculpture and video. If his means of expression are plural, so are his sources of inspiration. He draws on music, German Romanticism and American pop culture. German-born Friedrich Kunath moved to Los Angeles in 2007, seduced by the California light. Witnessing the horizons he observes in the American West, sunsets and mountain landscapes are recurring themes in his work, regularly treated with a contrasting, even garish, chromatic palette. The work we are presenting today is typical of the artist's work. On a shaded background, a man with a moon-shaped head lets out a tear, while his body seems to dissolve in contact with a setting sun. The hyper-realistic daisy, meanwhile, gives rise to a glimmer of hope. Today, Friedrich Kunath's works are held in some of the world's most prestigious collections, from the Fondation Louis Vuitton to the Centre Pompidou, the Pinault Collection, New York's MoMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Ludivine Tachot