This Saturday, October 7th, award-winning and internationally renowned German artist duo Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk – better known as coarse – unveil their debut exhibition at downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery. “Because I Wanted You To Know” will feature limited-edition original pieces, each meticulously handmade, the creations of hundreds of hours’ work in the artists’ studio based in Frogtown, Los Angeles.
Their works are striking, in both form and colour as much as they are thematically. Hand sculpted in resin, wood, and other mixed media, [coarse]’s signature sharp lines, smooth curves, and bright colours may intriguingly echo elements of children’s toys. Yet look deeper: the unveiling of private euphoria and melancholy, embedded with an overarching sense of voyeurism, plays at the heart of this series. Read ahead to learn more about “Because I Wanted You To Know”, and Landwehr’s deeply personal narrative behind the series.
Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk [coarse]: “Because I Wanted You To Know”
Opening Reception: October 7, 2023 | 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm (free entry)
Exhibitions Dates: October 7 – November 11, 2023
Corey Helford Gallery
Main Gallery, 571 S Anderson St (Enter on Willow St)
Los Angeles, CA 90033
(310) 287-2340
https://coreyhelfordgallery.com
Visiting Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm
For inquiries, contact the gallery via [email protected]
In ‘Because I Wanted You To Know’, the artists present a dinner party to which none of us were invited. As we arrive at the gallery, the evening has already reached its final course, a bombastically colourful climax of creams dripping down walls and translucent jellos. Each piece finds the characters in varying stages of paradise, from the euphoria of a new beginning to the sorrow of what will soon be over. As uninvited guests we witness the characters in moments when they think they are alone, allowing us to reflect on our own intimate memories, which belong to us and no one else.
Mark Landwehr shares:
In getting older, I’ve thought a lot about the fragility of life and how we think beautiful experiences will repeat themselves in the future, but more often than not they don’t. For this series I wanted to explore the disconnect between being in a perfect moment but simultaneously feeling as if it is already over.
“Because this is such a personal exhibition, most of the sculptures feature our most well-known character, noop, who is my self-portrait. The name noop is shortened form of ‘non-operational’ and hints at how we are all powerless to the way life carries us forward, oftentimes against our will.”
From press release – about coarse //
For over 20 years, the German duo known as coarse has been carving new paths in sculptural storytelling. Artists Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk explore the melancholy and visual simplicity inherent to German art and fuse it with a sophisticated sense of irreverence, resulting in multi-faceted sculptures and a distinctively unique aesthetic.
Through exhibitions around the world (including in Hong Kong, Seoul, Berlin, Tokyo, and Chicago) and collaborations with the likes of Warner Bros., Richard Mille for Pharrell Williams, DIESEL, Vans, and Ikea, coarse has earned international recognition. In 2015, their collaborative “Freedom Candles” art piece for Amnesty International earned them a Cannes Lion, and coarse’s representative art piece “The Passage” won three prizes at Designer Toy Awards 2014.
About Corey Helford Gallery //
Established in 2006 by Jan Corey Helford and her husband, television producer/creator Bruce Helford, Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) has since evolved into one of the premier galleries of New Contemporary art. Its goal as an institution is supporting the growth of artists, from the young and emerging, to the well-known and internationally established. CHG represents a diverse collection of international artists, primarily influenced by today’s pop culture. Collectively, their artists encompass style genres such as New Figurative Art, Pop Surrealism, Neo Pop, Graffiti, and Street Art. Located in downtown Los Angeles in a robust 12,000 square foot building, CHG presents new exhibitions approximately every six weeks.
Kazuki Takamatsu will open the same night in the Main Gallery with his new exhibition Parallelization Era. Also opening the same night will be the gallery’s second installment of their Literartistry II group show in Gallery 2 and a three-artist show, titled Bound by Nature, in Gallery 3 featuring new works by Canadian illustrator and author Dena Seiferling, surreal painter of nature Lisa Ericson, and Russian born/Sydney-based painter Yulia Pustoshkina. All shows will be on view through November 11th.
