It’s not an easy thing to stick to one idea or concept, keep working in that direction, and stay exciting and relevant throughout. But no matter how many times I’ve encountered Friedrich Kunath’s work or exhibitions, they keep feeling as moving, as genuine, and still somehow as original as ever. And looking at the documentation of his current exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler in Paris, I re-realized this for the millionth time.
Over the years, I’ve seen Kunath’s exhibitions at galleries in Antwerp, London, and Berlin; I got to catch some of his museum shows and experience his big installations; and I was even lucky to curate his work in one of my projects a few years ago. Still, every time I see his dimly lit snowy pinetree woodlands, his over-the-top sunsets, or his infinite horizons with airplanes tearing through, they always hit the spot. Continuously mixing and matching his cast of mostly jolly characters, placing them in new, yet familiarly archetypal scenery, and then obliterating the seeming narrative with the addition of a sobering text, Kunath has developed a formula that can’t seem to fail. And this current show, poetically/clumsily, but before anything else, wholeheartedly entitled On A Clear Day I Can See You Forever, is a prime example of that.
Occupying the 2 rooms of the gallery’s Parisian space, the exhibition features a selection of signature Kunath seaviews/forests/roads, as well as an installation-like presentation of more gestural, abstract works arranged around the bronze sculpture Sorry I Thought I Was Someone Else, 2026. And while appearing clearly different, the two bodies of work have coexisted for a long time in his practice. It’s just that this time, the more pictorial works are slightly more “cleaned up,” and what’s removed from them has its own place in the other works in the other room. And this notion of messiness and cleanliness is underlined w the absurd presence of a large ghost devotedly ironing his “suit.” But more obviously, this seemingly stark difference between the two bodies of work is bridged w self-quotation and the reusing of character and the iconic phrases, words, and symbols carved on the surface. The said chore-doer is appearing in the haziness of a large palm tree landscape, the snowman texting on a tropical island emerges from the lumps of thick oils in the abstract works (as well as in the said misty scene), and the ideas of love, loss, and sincerity tie all of them tightly together in an ever-expanding, melancholy-drenched universe. —Saša Bogojev
