Portrait of Friedrich Kunath

Photo: Michael Schmelling
News

Pace Announces Representation of Friedrich Kunath

Published Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Pace is pleased to announce its representation of the German-born, Los Angeles-based artist Friedrich Kunath, who is known for his layered, lyrical work across painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and video. Many of his paintings depict vibrant landscapes of otherworldly beauty, and he often incorporates poetic phrases and quotations from music or film into his canvases. Drawing inspiration from German Romanticism, the Hudson River School, American popular culture, music, and his own personal history, Kunath imbues his art with a myriad of seemingly disparate references and resonances, navigating the murky spaces between irony and sincerity, tragedy and comedy. Combining aesthetics of 19th century painting and contemporary culture, his work explores universal experiences of love and despair, hope and fear, and melancholy and longing, inviting varied interpretations and readings.

The artist will open his first solo show with Pace at the gallery’s 510 West 25th Street space in New York in fall 2025. Also this fall, Monacelli will release a new monograph tracing his work from the last 30 years, his travels around the world, and his recent experimentations with installation.

Samanthe Rubell, President of Pace Gallery, says:

“Friedrich’s work brings together emotional depth and poetic clarity, marked by a distinctive interplay of wit, melancholy, and cultural memory. Rooted in German art historical traditions and shaped by a deep engagement with the atmosphere of the West Coast of the US, his practice reflects a singular visual language—thoughtful, resonant, and unmistakably his own. His ability to translate historical imagery into a language that resonates today aligns closely with Pace’s commitment to artists who challenge and expand the ways we see the world. We’re proud to welcome him to the gallery!”

Viva Last Blues by Friedrich Kunath

Friedrich Kunath, Viva Last Blues, 2022, oil on canvas, 97.8 x 121.9 x 3.8 cm (38.5 x 48 x 1.5 inches) © Friedrich Kunath

Born in Chemnitz, Germany in 1974, Kunath studied at the Braunschweig University of Arts in Germany and has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 2007. Over the course of his career, he has presented solo exhibitions at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado; the KINDL Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin; White Cube in London and Hong Kong; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo (CAC) in Malaga, Spain; the Kunsthalle Bremerhaven and the Kunsthalle in Baden-Baden in Germany; and other international venues. The first major monograph dedicated to his work was published by Rizzoli in 2018.

Kunath sees himself as a composer of ideas and images across mediums, working fragments into artworks that become worlds unto themselves. He begins his paintings with free association abstraction, creating layers upon layers of meaning in these compositions. His life in Los Angeles, his relationship to Europe, and his interests in music, tennis, cars, and the art of collecting inform his work in equal measure. For Kunath, his studio is not only a space for working, but also for living—a Wunderkammer of sorts.

“To paint or to make these works is to feel at home,” he has said of his practice. “To feel found, to feel understood.”

Kunath’s work can be found in a number of major collections around the world, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Centre Pompidou, and Pinault Collection in Paris; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art in Athens; the Deji Art Museum in Nanjing, China; and the Oketa Collection in Tokyo, among others.

To learn more about Friedrich Kunath, click here.

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  • News — Friedrich Kunath Joins Pace Gallery, May 27, 2025