Cool Hunting

LA-based artist Karl Haendel's work—flirting with cliché, irony, realism and art history, among other common art pitfalls—makes the kind of work that evades easy categorization. His latest solo show at Anna Helwing Gallery is a collection of mostly pencil drawings of subjects that look both familiar and new, a trick that Haendel pulls off by his skillful manipulation and appropriation of his subjects.

Photo-realistic images, such as a whale jumping, a couple touching tongues and a sad-faced hobo clown, look pulled from magazines (and probably are) but the way the artist handles composition, scale and his medium avoid simple reproduction. Others, like a drawing that looks like a negative version of a Jill Greenberg "End Times" photos (above right) or "Abstract (Epson zoomie squares)," a dizzying op-art composition presumably made using a corporate graphic (above left), tweak source material in unexpectedly witty ways.

Karl Haendel: Last Fair Deal Gone Down
14 April-19 May 2007
2766 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034 map
tel. +1 310 202 2213