Friedrich Kunath
German Afternoons, 2020
Oil on canvas
243 × 198 × 3,81 cm
About the work
In German Afternoons (2020), Friedrich Kunath brings together two worlds that play an important role in his work: German Romanticism and Western popular culture.
Kunath reinterprets Romanticism through dreamlike compositions. He combines elements drawn from widely differing visual worlds: still lifes, cartoon imagery, commercial illustrations, nature photography and familiar clichés. Poetic elements are paired with often melancholic images.
Humour and seriousness are closely intertwined. Kunath blends comedy with pathos, evoking feelings of love, hope, longing and despair. The result is at once nostalgic, ironic and self-deprecating. His own journey from Germany to Los Angeles plays an important role in this.
For Kunath, German Romanticism is the most 'German' of all German art movements. He sees it as both an expression of and a reaction against emerging modernism. In his words, it may have been the final rearguard action against the unstoppable advance of progress, Enlightenment and industrialisation.
He therefore sees a strong connection between Romantic paintings of peaceful cultivated landscapes and the moment just before those same landscapes face destruction by modern progress.
He links this idea to California, where he now lives. Kunath compares California to a place looking at itself in a rear-view mirror. To him, it feels like an imaginary environment in which a new form of Romanticism can emerge.
In his paintings, Kunath also explores the moment when an artist must stop and let go of a work. He believes that, ultimately, everything remains a fragment.
According to Kunath, our global visual culture has reduced almost every visual sign to an emoji or a simplification. Driven by a longing for a Romantic sensibility, his work continually moves between the sublime and emptiness.
Friedrich Kunath
° 1974 in Chemnitz, East Germany. Lives and works in Los Angeles, United States.
Friedrich Kunath graduated from the Braunschweig University of Art in Germany in 1998. He has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 2007. His artistic practice is informed by his experiences on the American West Coast and his enduring connection to Europe.
In his work, Kunath brings together German Romanticism and American popular culture. His personal interests in music, tennis, cars and collecting also find their way into his oeuvre. His paintings often depict colourful, almost otherworldly landscapes incorporating poetic phrases and quotations from music and film. Through these elements, he has developed a distinctive visual language in which humour, emotional depth and cultural memory remain in constant dialogue.
Kunath's work has been exhibited internationally, with recent solo exhibitions at venues including Kunstsammlung Jena; the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga; KINDL - Centre for Contemporary Art in Berlin; Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp; G2 Kunsthalle in Leipzig; and Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin.
His work is held in major international collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris; the Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and the Pinault Collection in Paris.