Vielmetter Los Angeles is pleased to present Karl Haendel's solo exhibition Glass half, the artist's fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. On the occasion of his show, the artist's daughter Hazel wrote about her father's work:

My papa, Karl Haendel, is having yet another art show. He said that this will be “my best show ever”. But he says this before every art show, even though, technically, they can’t all be the best, as some of them must be just okay, and at least one must be the worst. At a glance, the show looks very similar to all the other art shows he has had, even though I know it is new art because he is always at his studio drawing more art. He told me he draws so much because he is “building a singular language of drawing” which seems a little out of reach to me.

I asked him what the show was about and he said “the show is about generations, the future becoming the past, creation and destruction, fear and play.” Most of these themes seem to make sense in my head. Like I get how it is playful, cause he hangs art strangely, like in corners or from the ceiling, and there are animals wearing watches, and a drawing of protesting people that we had fun making together. But I still needed to ask him why a scribble symbolizes “creation and destruction”, so maybe I wouldn't say that the themes he chose make complete sense. I would also like to mention that one of the scribbles in this show has been deemed the “perfect scribble” by him, but it really just looks like any other scribble. Personally, I think he was delusional at the time of drawing it, as he had drawn hundreds of scribbles beforehand, just so he could have the “perfect” one.

The show also has drawings of words that say things that are “part poem, part thought experiments”. This seems strange, because if I wanted to go to an art gallery (which I don’t), I’d prefer not spend my time reading, as I’d rather go to the library for that. Another drawing is of two unicorns, really just two horses with unicorn horns slapped on their foreheads. This drawing, according to my Papa, is meant to be him and I, but I don’t see the resemblance. Another piece of art in the show is a giant drawing of a modern home with really big windows, looking out on to chaos. He says that the drawing is about the feeling of dread. However, personally, I think that the outside chaos is more interesting than most (if not all) of his drawings, and therefore doesn’t make me think of dread, but instead that I should stop staring at these pieces of paper on the wall and do something else.