August 22, 2024 • 37 mins
In the lastest episode of The Collectors’ Edge from Nordic Art Partners we discuss the life, work and career of Friedrich Kunath, a celebrated German artist now based in Los Angeles. From his early experiences in pre-unification, Communist East Germany to the pinnacle of today’s art world, we discuss what makes Kunath’s work distinctive and unique and just why it has an incredible breadth of appeal to a wide range of tastes and geographic markets.
A departure from the category of artists we often explore, Kunath is not a historic artist deserving of a reappraisal by the market, but a fully established mid-career artist following a stable but consistently improving trajectory. We learn about his formative influences under the tuition of Walter Dahn at Braunschweig University in the early 90s, his forays into the underground nightlife scene of turn of the millenium Berlin and, eventually, his full commitment to the life of an artist. Known for his ability to synthesise a wide range of visual and cutural influences, from the highest levels of classical landscape painting to the simplest and most common manifestations of pop culture, we discuss in detail the characteristics of Kunath’s paintings, the themes he explores and the unique blend of painterly skill and lyrical humour he applies to them. Distinguished by powerful feelings of wistful yearning, nostalgia and self-deprecating wit, we look into the ways Kunath’s cultural anthroplogy embraces both melancholia and euphoria and, in doing so, encompasses the full register of the human experience.
As an artist who has honed and refined his craft to incredible levels of technical excellence, we discuss the current market status it has brought him and the highly credible galleries around the world that support, sustain and manage so well this position he has achieved both within the industry and wider cultural landscape. But what comes next for Kunath? After twenty years of evolution and improvement—of steadily building his body of work, his reputation and the insitutional regard for his work, is there to be a next step? We speculate as to what his career might need now, and the implications it may have for his pricing, value and place within a wider market context. Prepare to be captivated by one of the most compelling and poetic visual universes in today’s contemporary art scene and informed as to why collecting his work could be among the shrewdest acquisition choices any art buyer could make.
Episode Artwork: Friedrich Kunath, We We Will Be Modern Until We Die, 2023, Oil on canvas, 90 x 120cm (Detail), Image courtesy Travesio Cuatro, Madrid, © Friedrich Kunath
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Episode Transcript
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Jeppe Curth (00:00):
Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge from Nordic
Art Partners.
In today's episode, we willdive into the career of
Friedrich Grunert, an innovativeGerman artist living in Los
Angeles.
Joining me, as always, is ourart expert, iklas Robeson.
I'm your Je.
ppe C, .
Let's get started.
Nicholas Robinson (00:18):
It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million
Selling here at Christie's.
$400 million is the bid and thepiece is sold.
We've all heard about it.
Sometimes it's front page newsImportant works of art are being
sold for incredible sums ofmoney.
But can you get involved andbecome a part of the exclusive
(00:40):
club yourself, and how do youget started while avoiding
buying the wrong things?
That's exactly what thispodcast is about.
This is the Collector's Edgefrom Nordic Art Partners, a
podcast for those of youinterested in the mechanics of
the art industry, want adviceabout putting money into art, or
(01:00):
simply want to buy somethingfor your walls, to beautify your
surroundings.
Whatever your objectives, it ispossible to put money into art
wisely, to be considered,thoughtful and well informed in
your choices and actions.
Jeppe Curth (01:22):
Welcome to the art of collecting with an eye for
curated beauty and practicalvalue.
Nicholas Robinson (01:30):
Hi Nick, Hi Jeppe, how are you doing?
Very well, thank you.
It's nice to be back after oursummer.
It is, isn't it?
Yeah, ready to go.
Jeppe Curth (01:35):
We're ready to go, and today is Friedrich Kunath.
Nicholas Robinson (01:38):
Yes, yes, friedrich Kunath.
Yes, it's been a while sincewe've listened to ourselves
speak about art and I guess,since he's one of our favorites,
we have a chance to get backinto podcasting with something
that's very dear to our hearts.
Jeppe Curth (01:56):
Yes but it's a bit different from the other times,
when we talk about artists,right.
Nicholas Robinson (02:00):
Yes, it is.
I mean, often we speak ofartists who we feel are quite
significantly undervalued,underappreciated by the market,
but of course we feel that theircontribution and their place in
art history will merit areappraisal of their sort of
(02:22):
economic status, shall we say.
But um, but Kunath's a bitdifferent.
He is what we could describe asa mid-career artist.
He's 50 years old and he's beenworking now for consistently
for 20 years, um, building andbuilding his, his body of work,
his reputation, his standing anduh, and this is, you know, this
(02:43):
is something, I guess, thatdiffers a little from our normal
field of interest, but I guess,qualitatively, we're very
inspired by his work.
We've been interested in it fora long time.
We've bought many, we've placedmany and it's just, you know
it's, it's something we're verypassionate about.
Jeppe Curth (03:01):
Yes, it is, but can we start from the beginning and
find out where he's from andmaybe also some biographical
information?
Nicholas Robinson (03:10):
Of course, kunath was born in 1974 in
Chemnitz, which was in theformer East Germany, the DDR,
and he had a self-described um,happy and and, and you know,
well-rounded childhood.
His mother was a band manager,so he speaks, has spoken a lot
(03:34):
about how music was a huge uhinfluence upon him and in his
household generally.
Um, but the thing about livingin uh on the on the wrong side
of the iron curtain, so to speak, is that you know, it's very
difficult for one to becomeaware of all of the things that
(03:54):
you are denied by virtue ofliving there.
Um, the things that you areexposed to are invariably things
that the overriding system willallow you to be to be exposed
to.
So.
So a very key thing happened toKunath when he was 12.
He moved, his family moved toWest Germany, and this would
(04:16):
have been in 1986 or thereabouts, so a sort of classic decade,
if you like, for an explosion ofsort of cultural attitudes,
consumerism, et cetera, in aaffluent country which, of
course, would have been ripe forreceiving all of these things.
And one of the things, ofcourse, uh, this sort of uh very
(04:44):
um impressionable age um is the, is that the kind of uh utopia
of communism uh would have beenproven to be a fallacy.
So when he is uh in his laterteens, um, he goes to the
Braunschweig University of Art,which is a specialist uh art
college, a well-renowned one Um,and anecdotally uh, I
(05:07):
understand that it was hismother who made the application
for him.
She had seen that he was umskilled at making drawings, that
he was content, you know,constantly doing this Um, and
that perhaps this would be agood uh vocational choice for
him.
So I understand that she madethe application, perhaps even
largely unbeknownst to him, andthen he was accepted, so then
(05:31):
subsequently went to study there, and whilst he was studying
there he was mentored by apainter, a member of the faculty
, by the name of Walter Dahn,who was himself a protege of
Joseph Beuys, by the name ofWalter Dahn, who was himself a
protege of Joseph Beuys.
And Dahn was a leading memberof an expressionist expressive
painting movement from the early80s, and the 80s was a decade
(05:55):
which witnessed a strong revivalin painting, and expressive
painting in particular, and hewas part of a group that came to
be dubbed the Neue Wildes,which literally is translated as
the new wild ones, but is morecommonly known as the new foes,
(06:15):
and this movement was involvedin making just what they termed
bad paintings rapid, expressive,coarse, crude paintings, and
the sole purpose of which wassort of designed to interrogate
whether there was actually anypoint to making paintings at all
.
The work has been described ascultural anthropology, which I
(06:38):
take to mean its tendency tosynthesize, analyze all the
visual ideologies of art andalso everyday culture within
these paintings, and of courseit's a term that we can well, as
we get more into looking atKunath's work, we can understand
that perhaps it's a useful termthrough which to understand his
(06:59):
work as well.
After he graduated, he traveledto the USA, a typical rites of
passage road trip across this um, this sort of fabled uh nation.
He um ended up in San Diego uh,where he and some friends begin
(07:25):
an underground nightclub whichproves extremely popular with
the sort of bohemian subcultureand all the arty kids.
But it's a culture, of course,that is a very nocturnal,
somewhat riotous one um,somewhat riotous uh one Um, and
(07:51):
we can um fast forward to 2003and uh Kunath's liver and
pancreas um are at the pointwhere they have other ideas and
he has been sufficientlyintoxicated um pickling himself,
essentially Um, so he has todecide that he must stop living
this way if he is to perhapseven survive, certainly to be
(08:14):
healthy.
So he determines to do this andhe gets himself straightened
out and he then begins his artcareer in earnest.
Jeppe Curth (08:23):
And he then begins his art career in earnest.
Okay, thanks for the background.
As he begins his art career,can you tell us what central
themes he explores in his work?
What is it about them thatmakes them compelling to
collectors almost from thebeginning?
Nicholas Robinson (08:38):
Well, I think that, well, the purpose of this
podcast is to talk in the mainabout his paintings, but Kunath
Irv does span not only painting,drawing, installation,
sculpture, video, where he sortof explodes his aesthetic
universe and kind of surroundsus with all of these visual
(09:00):
influences.
And I think, um, if we, if wesummarize his, his, the feel of
his work, um, it's to say thatthey are um highbrow and lowbrow
simultaneously.
They are romantic but alsoconceptual Um, they are, of
course, informed by his ownpersonal history, but also, uh,
(09:22):
music, uh, the history ofpainting, german romanticism and
American pop culture.
So they are, they are tradition, traditional and modern at the
same time and they, theyillustrate tragedy, comedy,
romance, love loss, yearning,aspiration, melancholy, euphoria
(09:44):
, and they shift between all ofthese, these sort of tones on
the emotional register, um, andthen they kind of occupy a space
in between sort of irony andsatire, um, where they can feel
a little bit sort of tongue incheek and a bit cloying,
sometimes also sincerity.
(10:04):
So they sometimes can feel veryprofound, very uplifting, and
he's very adept at kind ofinhabiting the space in between
all of these sentiments okay, sothis wide range of emotion is
one of his things he's known for.
Jeppe Curth (10:20):
How does he achieve this, and can you maybe tell us
more about his paintings ingeneral?
What do they look like, what dothey tell us, and maybe also,
what technique does he use tomake them?
Nicholas Robinson (10:34):
Yes, I think that we can't understand
Kunath's paintings withoutunderstanding the sort of
fundamental building block ofbuilding blocks of his work, and
that usually is a romanticlandscape, and I mean romantic
in the sort of purest classicalsense.
And if we're going tounderstand what Romanticism
(10:59):
means, we have to rewind to themiddle of the 18th century.
And in 1757, a Britishphilosopher by the name of
Edmund Burke wrote a treatiseand this was called A
Philosophical Inquiry into theOrigin of Our Ideas of the
sublime and the beautiful.
So, according to Burke, thebeautiful is that which is
(11:20):
well-formed and aestheticallypleasing, maybe like a Greek
sculpture or something like this.
But the sublime is that whichhas the power to overwhelm us,
to compel us and even destroy us.
Compel us and even destroy us,um, really, it's sort of
(11:41):
summarizes the presence ofalmighty God and his hand in the
awesomeness of nature.
And this period in culturalhistory sort of indicates the uh
, or marks the transition fromthe neoclassical to the romantic
era.
And so you have all theseartists that become inspired by
this idea in Britain, artistslike John Martin, William Blake,
(12:07):
for instance, but possibly thegreatest of all, arguably the
greatest known of all, is aGerman painter, was a German
painter by the name of CasparDavid Friedrich, and Friedrich
was a master at painting sublimelandscapes, just incredible
scenes of the majesty of nature.
(12:27):
But what he also did is hefrequently placed a small or
somewhat insignificant figure ofa man, often just a single man,
who was simultaneously awed andcontemplative when considering
the nature in front of him, butalso rendered small and
(12:51):
insignificant by this might allaround him.
So these feelings thatFriedrich is very adept at
evoking in us are also echoed byKunath, and Kunath has an
incredible technical facilityfor making paintings that can
(13:12):
replicate or ape this kind ofvery pure classical landscape.
And then what he doessubsequently is he overlays all
of these elements thatillustrate an altogether
different set of influences, andthese are things that we can
(13:32):
summarize, as you know, thingsthat he's derived from
commercial culture, advertising,illustration, music, record
labels, album covers, cartoons.
One motif that recurs frequentlyis actually something from a
cartoon made in Czechoslovakiain the late 50s.
(13:55):
There's a character called theLittle Mole, actually actually,
which, which won the award forthe best directing achievement
at the Venice film festival in1957.
Um, but this little character,um, he never spoke in the
cartoons.
His, his emotional life and hisexperiences were always
communicated by um, these sortof non-figurative exclamations
(14:17):
and through incidental music.
So, um, this is how weunderstood what the little mole
was was going through.
And the little mole crops up inmany of kunath's paintings.
Um, I guess you could even, youcould even sort of stretch the
the um analogy to sort of saythat, you know, he's also
representative of, of of West.
(14:38):
This is a character created incommunist Czechoslovakia, but
it's a character that isinspired by the way Disney used
to imbue animal characters withsort of human personalities,
(15:00):
with sort of human personalities.
So it's also, of course,indicative of having this very,
you know, elevated, high fineart landscape and then all of
these more sort of lowbrowstreet smarts, you know a more
kind of not a base culture but amuch more mainstream everyday
popular culture.
And then what he subsequentlydoes is he writes phrases on his
(15:23):
paintings, or paints phrases,and these phrases are designed
to summarize, you know, the moodof the painting.
Sometimes they are sort of verywistful and very vague,
sometimes they're very sort ofpithy and precise and they, you
know, they're sort of aphorisms,that kind of encapsulate maybe
the vibe of what Kunath istrying to communicate, or what
(15:43):
he thinks the painting is aboutwhen he made the first of such
works.
This was actually just a phrasepainting.
It had no landscape behind it.
No landscape, um, uh, behind it, um.
In in 2003,.
The paintings phrase and titlewas um, if you leave me, can I
(16:04):
come to?
So?
This, of course, is is anexample of this sort of wistful
witticism uh at play, um.
Other phrases, uh.
Some examples are I restored mywill to live again.
I don't worry anymore.
It's been evening all day long.
I'd never thought I'd make itthis far.
So you have all of these kindsof phrases that summarize the
(16:26):
mood that Kunath is trying tocommunicate, encompassing
especially sort of melancholyand euphoria, often within the
same painting.
Sometimes the phrases are veryambiguous.
He's a big fan of tennis and hehas utilized some of the
(16:46):
language of tennis also in someof these phrases.
One such one would be I need abreak Now.
In life, we all need a break,but in tennis, if you wish to
win, we all need a break.
But in tennis, if you wish towin, you have to break your
opponent's serve in order totriumph.
So this is an example of howhis sort of play on words is
(17:06):
functioning.
And then another example wouldbe.
Love means zero.
Obviously, in tennis, zero is,or sorry, love is synonymous
with having no points.
Love, of course, is a mightything, but Kunath equates it to
zero in order to kind of createthis ambiguity within this pun.
So these are essentially whathis paintings look like and what
(17:29):
they consist of, and then hewill bury other little sort of
gems or witticisms or vignetteswithin the painting.
He will turn his paintbrusharound and he will use the back
end of the paintbrush as astylus to inscribe sort of
graffito-like little moments inthe painting.
Sometimes they're phrases thatsort of refer to the main title,
(17:52):
sometimes they're littlecartoons, they're just lots of
little sort of treats, eastereggs, if you like.
That you can find.
You stand back from thepainting and you perceive this
sort of overarching feel of thelandscape.
But then you approach thepainting and you scrutinize it
at a much closer distance andyou get to discover all of these
(18:12):
sort of visual treats thatKunath has sort of semi-buried
within the surface, sometimesvery heavy impasto encrusting on
the surface.
You know they're very painterlyas well.
Jeppe Curth (18:30):
So Kunath has gained more and more attention
in the recent years.
Why do you think his workresonates so strongly with
collectors?
Nicholas Robinson (18:41):
Well, I think that his paintings,
qualitatively, are justoutstanding.
I mean, he's a reallytremendously great painter and
the paintings are beautiful tolook at but they're also sort of
entertaining to discover.
So they work on these sort ofmany levels.
They work on this very elevatedaesthetic level through, you
(19:02):
know, by virtue of his justimmense skill at rendering a
landscape.
And then they have all of thesesort of multi-layered, playful
elements which, you know, speakvery profoundly of all of the
things we're familiar with aspart of, you know, what art
historians or philosophers liketo call, you know, the human
experience.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that hispaintings are well, as well as
(19:27):
being universal in that way,they're also quite universal in
a sort of a geographic way.
The paintings have this, youknow, sort of unmistakable
European feel because of thenature of the landscape, but
they have all of these overlaidelements which speak very much
(19:48):
to like an American sensibility.
I mean, he is an artist, he's aEuropean artist who lives in Los
Angeles, and his paintings arealmost as much, you know, la, uh
, american paintings as they areEuropean paintings.
I mean, if you look at thehistory of um modern and
contemporary art in America andalso in, especially in the West
(20:11):
coast, from the midpoint of the20th century, we can see a very
distinctive kind of pop artemerging.
We have sort of assemblage,which he's also very adept at
incorporating, even though Imean he has done, but he doesn't
typically kind of adherephysical objects to the surface
of his paintings.
This is much more part of hiskind of installation feel that
(20:34):
explodes out of his vision.
But what he does do is he useswords, in the same way that
we've seen artists like, perhapslike Ed Ruscha, use words.
So his paintings are, you know,they're perfect for a European
sensibility, they're perfect foran American sensibility and
because they encapsulate all ofthose things, they're also
(20:57):
invariably perfect for an Asiansensibility which has, you know,
historically and certainly inmore recent years, been a
voracious consumer of, you know,things that have a well like a
almost like a cartoon feelcoming out of the United States
(21:20):
the United States.
Jeppe Curth (21:20):
Can you tell us about his place in the market,
which galleries shows his workor represent him, and do you
think his career will have somenext step or another level, and
what do you think that will be?
Nicholas Robinson (21:28):
Well, his galleries, I mean he's had a.
He's been exhibitingconsistently now for 20 years,
so he's obviously been makinghis way through a number of
galleries.
During that time he's, you know, he's exhibited a strong, um,
professional mobility where he'ssort of graduated from one
gallery to another gallery ashis, as he's progressively got
(21:50):
better and his reputation hasgrown Um, uh.
Up until a few years ago heshowed withenig in Germany, but
latterly shows with Max Hetzler,which I suppose is one of the
greatest galleries in Europe andhas been for quite some time.
Hetzler's, a legendary gallery,was the first gallery to show
(22:14):
Jeff Koons in Europe 30 yearsago.
I mean, he's been doing histhing for a long time, so this
is obviously a great gallerywith an impeccable reputation
and a big following and reach.
He shows with Tim Van Leer inAntwerp, which is a very nice
(22:34):
gallery.
He shows with Arles Carl herein Copenhagen, which is one of
the better galleries here.
He shows with a gallery calledTrevisio Quattro in.
They're in Madrid and in Mexicoand they're an excellent
gallery too.
And these are all mostly Baselgalleries or galleries that
(22:56):
exhibit in Art Basel.
So obviously his work iscontinually exposed to the sort
of highest caliber of artaudience and consumer that there
is.
And his next step?
Well, I think that we're yet toreally see exactly what that
(23:16):
will be, to really see exactlywhat that will be.
But if you look at the statusquo of his current exhibiting
career, it includes, you know,tremendously good galleries in
Los Angeles, in Germany Hetzleris also in London and then of
(23:41):
course, other important markets,but of course slightly more
peripheral markets to where themain action takes place.
So I think really the missingpiece, if we can call it that,
is a substantial exhibition inNew York, um, and obviously
there are some very majorgalleries there that have their
(24:01):
the sort of the preeminentlocations, um, for prestige, for
, you know, the eyes of the artworld being on them, uh, et
cetera.
So I I think that you know his,his career has been a very
stable and has shown a reallystrong yet steady trajectory to
(24:21):
this point.
So he's obviously smart atunderstanding what he needs and
plotting his next moves and he'she's also got the you know, the
support of really substantialgalleries behind him.
So it can't be lost on any ofthese people that having that
kind of show in New York is isimportant to his next steps, and
(24:44):
I, and I expect that somethingthat will will happen.
His work is now sort ofcrystallized to the point where
he's absolutely in his sort offully mature style.
Um, you know, he's, he's, he's.
His paintings have all the thethe elements that I've described
, but also an incredible sort ofpainterly richness which speaks
(25:05):
of someone at the top of theirgame.
Um, and and there are galleriesin New York that know this um,
he's not some sort of stealthysurprise lurking in the far
corners of the art world, he's a, he's a.
He's a famed artist ofincredible talent and with a
very distinctive aesthetic.
(25:26):
Um, and I imagine that in thenext year or two, there'll be a
major show in New York atprobably one of the best
galleries in the world.
Jeppe Curth (25:35):
Yeah, and maybe we could also talk a little bit
about his prices.
His current auction record isaround $118,000 for 2.13m by
1.52m, which is not that strong.
But how do you see thesecondary market and also his
primary market prices?
Nicholas Robinson (25:56):
Well, he's a very interesting artist in that
there does not, there's not avery strong secondary market at
this point in time.
He has, his works have beenbeen, sort of, you know,
devotedly acquired by collectorsthat, firstly, love the work.
And so, you know, we understandit, we live with his paintings,
(26:18):
we look at them every day.
You know, we understand it, welive with his paintings, we look
at them every day.
We would not be keen to nolonger be able to do that in
order to get you know, whateverprofit we could get.
We, we, we, we value the worksat this point more than than we
would value that, um.
But I think that paintings thathave come up for auction and
paintings that appear on thesecondary market often are
(26:42):
earlier works that are maybe youcould say are sort of
transitional works aesthetically, and not fully emblematic,
qualitatively, of the maturestyle which, which we now see,
which we now see, and the maturestyle now, of course, has
synthesized all of theseelements that I've described and
(27:03):
and that is what has enabledhim to basically make the step
up to being an artist whoconsistently delivers this level
of quality in every paintingand who, um, certainly,
certainly for quite some timenow manages to sell out every
exhibition, and not only that,but the galleries that have
(27:30):
these exhibitions.
They have the luxury often ofchoosing who they sell the
paintings to, which, of course,is another element that sort of
supports and substantiates thestability and well-managed
nature of his career.
So paintings that have croppedup before are not of that
(27:52):
standard.
Often they lack the very thickhandling of paint in the impasto
which gives them a real tactilerichness, a much drier surface,
much more graphic qualityperhaps.
And then other paintings thathave cropped up.
You know, kunath does make somequite large paintings and if a
(28:13):
very big painting comes up,invariably it has a somewhat
limited audience, because a bigpainting is also quite an
impractical thing to accommodate.
You know, if you've got, youknow, a three meter painting, a
lot of people think well, I lovethe painting, but where am I
going to put it?
So it, you know it, naturallylimits the potential resale
market for the work.
(28:34):
So that's a little bit why hissecondary market is not super
strong.
His paintings are extremelylabor intensive.
He doesn't make that many ofthem and most of the works that
he has made remain with thepeople that have bought them
because they continue to lovethem and they want to keep them.
And the primary market of hispaintings is sort of interesting
(28:57):
because he shows every year andthe prices go up every year.
They don't go up by an app, youknow a sort of a uh, um, you
know meteoric amount.
They go up by small, sensible,manageable increments to um, to
sustain the level of demand, to,to, to create you know a very
(29:17):
well-managed market for hispaintings.
As an example, a current sortof two meter 20 painting would
be about $110,000.
A one and a half meter paintingwould be $85,000.
And it's not too long ago,maybe 18 months ago, that a one
(29:42):
and a half meter painting thatis now $85,000 would have been
$75,000.
And then a year before that,two years before that, $65,000.
So they go up by thesemanageable increments 10, 15%
each time moving his his careerforwards.
A one meter 20 size painting is$70,000.
(30:04):
Now it remains to be seenexactly what they will cost in
the shows that he is to havethis year and next year.
Jeppe Curth (30:11):
Okay, thank you, nick, for the walkthrough in the
in the prizes.
How do you, how do Kunitzprices compared to similar
contemporary artists and whatdoes he say about his place in
the market?
Sometimes we talk about theopportunity cost, right?
Nicholas Robinson (30:24):
well, yes, of course, I mean anything,
anything that that we spendmoney on is, you know, money
that we then obviously can'tspend on something else?
Um, but I think Kunath'spaintings are somewhat
reasonable.
Um, this is an artist who hasbeen consistently showing in
top-ranking galleries for 20years.
His first museum show was in2009, 15 years ago, at the
(30:48):
Kunstverein in Hanover.
His work is in the CarnegieMuseum in Pittsburgh, pompidou
in Paris, the D'Este in Athens,hammer, la LACMA, la MoMA, pinot
Collection in Paris, walker ArtCenter.
I mean, his paintings areglobally acknowledged as being
worthy of these, theseprestigious institutions.
(31:10):
So obviously he's he's.
He's a top, top artist and, aswe've described, a mid-career
artist who has achieved thisstatus consistently.
So I think that his work isactually somewhat reasonable.
There are many artists who havea lesser CV than Kunath, but
(31:30):
maybe their work is a littlemore conforming to some I don't
know, fashionable movement orother.
I mean, we see artists thatcome from nowhere and their
paintings are suddenly two,three, $400,000.
Um, and I think that there's agreat deal of market potential
for these works.
They're not, you know, they're.
It's easy to see them also asextremely finely crafted objects
(31:54):
.
You know, this is a master ofpainting.
Kunath is, is is a master ofpainting and so qualitatively
you can, you can always sort ofdefend a price when you, when
you see that someone has aunique skill in making it.
So I feel that I feel that theprimary market for Kunath's
paintings is is reasonable, thepaintings are not cheap.
(32:15):
But you know, when you get aKunath painting you never, you
never, do not feel that it'sbeen money well spent.
Jeppe Curth (32:29):
When we look at the work from both an aesthetic and
a financial perspective, how doyou see Kunath's work fitting
into a thoughtful, well-createdart collection?
Nicholas Robinson (32:39):
Well, I think that I think, I think that I
think we've, I think we'vecovered that really.
I mean, his paintings, as we'vedemonstrated, they are, you
know, they're, they're exquisiteobjects.
They are, they, they, they showa certain sort of deafness and
technical facility that is, youknow, really really up there.
This is, these are likebeautiful, sumptuous things to
(33:02):
look at.
Um, obviously, they, they, asI've said, they work from a,
from a sort of a pure paintingperspective, but they also work
from a conceptual perspective.
These are very contemporaryobjects, um, and so, you know,
of course, if you're acontemporary art collector, you
often have lots of quite diversethings or things that, at least
(33:26):
you know, are very different tolook at from each other.
I mean, kunath's paintings, youknow, can, of course, exist
comfortably alongside you knowanything.
I think that, like I, like Imentioned a second ago that they
are, that they're reasonable,they're the his career, his, his
price point is absolutelymerited by his career and and
(33:47):
arguably, prices, you know,could easily have been
significantly higher, could evenhave been a hundred percent
higher, and people wouldn'tthink, you know, oh, where did
this price come from?
I mean, he's had the trajectorywhere you could justifiably say
, well, this is where he's gotto.
So you know, all of thesethings, of course, remain to be
(34:07):
seen, but the trajectory, aswe've demonstrated, is not over.
It's now, hopefully for him andfor his fans, you know about to
come to a new level.
Jeppe Curth (34:20):
So for someone who is new to Kunert's works, where
or what would be the best way tostart exploring them?
Nicholas Robinson (34:27):
Well, I mean, I think obviously all of these
galleries will have informationabout the exhibitions that
they've hosted of his work.
Actually, there's a gallery thatI forgot to mention, which is
my mistake, but the first sortof big gallery that showed his
work was uh, uh, bloom, uh,bloom and Poe, as it used to be,
um.
They discovered his work, um, inBasel, in Art Basel, in the
(34:52):
statements section, in 2003,which back then was like a real
sort of I don't know, I don'tknow what you call it a real
incubator for new talent and aplace where galleries would be
able to go and scout out thingsthat they would really want to
discover and explore workingwith.
So he showed, with them, and ifyou go to that gallery's website
(35:18):
I mean, they've shown his worknow probably a dozen times,
certainly eight or nine, tentimes over many years, and so if
you look at the exhibitions,the exhibition pages that he's
had with them on their website,you'll be able to see the visual
progression of his work.
You'll be able to see some ofthe more highly sophisticated
(35:43):
sort of Wunderkammerinstallations that he has made,
which have parlayed very wellinto institutional settings, and
then, of course, you'll be ableto see the press releases that
accompany each of those showsfor you to understand.
You know thematically what he'strying to achieve with those
exhibitions and how his ideasand his aesthetic have changed
(36:04):
and developed and evolved reallythroughout the entirety of his
mature working life.
Jeppe Curth (36:10):
Yes, thank you, nick.
I think we covered the most ofKuna.
Do you have anything to add?
Nicholas Robinson (36:16):
No, I think I think that pro, that's probably
it.
There's.
Have anything to add?
No, I think I think that pro,that's probably it.
Um, there's.
There's a quote that kunath hassaid, uh, or a statement that
he's made about his own work,which I think is is kind of fun,
and it really, to me at least,summarizes the way that he's
able to, you know, hit the highnights, high notes and the low
notes with the sort of tones ofhis painting.
(36:37):
He said if I could place mypainting somewhere between Oasis
and Johann Sebastian Bach, Iwould be a happy man.
Jeppe Curth (36:46):
Now, obviously, that's that's a mic drop.
Nicholas Robinson (36:50):
Yeah, it is.
It says well, we're credit tohim for that.
Of course, you know, I supposeonly he could so humorously
distill and reduce his entiresort of achievement into such a
an entertaining little littlephrase.
But that's what he's done, andthat's what you know, we, we
think he does.
So I suppose we could, we couldsay you know he, he should be a
(37:10):
happy man because that's that's, that's what he's managed to do
.
Jeppe Curth (37:14):
Thank you, nick, once again for letting me
picking your brain.
Nicholas Robinson (37:17):
Thanks, yes, no, it's been a pleasure.
We love Kunath and it's reallynice to always think about what
he does.
Yes, we do so.
Jeppe Curth (37:27):
if you have any questions you want to get in
contact, please write to us atinfo at nordicaartpuddlescom.
See you next time.
Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge from Nordic
Art Partners.
In today's episode, we willdive into the career of
Friedrich Grunert, an innovativeGerman artist living in Los
Angeles.
Joining me, as always, is ourart expert, iklas Robeson.
I'm your Je.
ppe C, .
Let's get started.
Nicholas Robinson (00:18):
It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million
Selling here at Christie's.
$400 million is the bid and thepiece is sold.
We've all heard about it.
Sometimes it's front page newsImportant works of art are being
sold for incredible sums ofmoney.
But can you get involved andbecome a part of the exclusive
(00:40):
club yourself, and how do youget started while avoiding
buying the wrong things?
That's exactly what thispodcast is about.
This is the Collector's Edgefrom Nordic Art Partners, a
podcast for those of youinterested in the mechanics of
the art industry, want adviceabout putting money into art, or
(01:00):
simply want to buy somethingfor your walls, to beautify your
surroundings.
Whatever your objectives, it ispossible to put money into art
wisely, to be considered,thoughtful and well informed in
your choices and actions.
Jeppe Curth (01:22):
Welcome to the art of collecting with an eye for
curated beauty and practicalvalue.
Nicholas Robinson (01:30):
Hi Nick, Hi Jeppe, how are you doing?
Very well, thank you.
It's nice to be back after oursummer.
It is, isn't it?
Yeah, ready to go.
Jeppe Curth (01:35):
We're ready to go, and today is Friedrich Kunath.
Nicholas Robinson (01:38):
Yes, yes, friedrich Kunath.
Yes, it's been a while sincewe've listened to ourselves
speak about art and I guess,since he's one of our favorites,
we have a chance to get backinto podcasting with something
that's very dear to our hearts.
Jeppe Curth (01:56):
Yes but it's a bit different from the other times,
when we talk about artists,right.
Nicholas Robinson (02:00):
Yes, it is.
I mean, often we speak ofartists who we feel are quite
significantly undervalued,underappreciated by the market,
but of course we feel that theircontribution and their place in
art history will merit areappraisal of their sort of
(02:22):
economic status, shall we say.
But um, but Kunath's a bitdifferent.
He is what we could describe asa mid-career artist.
He's 50 years old and he's beenworking now for consistently
for 20 years, um, building andbuilding his, his body of work,
his reputation, his standing anduh, and this is, you know, this
(02:43):
is something, I guess, thatdiffers a little from our normal
field of interest, but I guess,qualitatively, we're very
inspired by his work.
We've been interested in it fora long time.
We've bought many, we've placedmany and it's just, you know
it's, it's something we're verypassionate about.
Jeppe Curth (03:01):
Yes, it is, but can we start from the beginning and
find out where he's from andmaybe also some biographical
information?
Nicholas Robinson (03:10):
Of course, kunath was born in 1974 in
Chemnitz, which was in theformer East Germany, the DDR,
and he had a self-described um,happy and and, and you know,
well-rounded childhood.
His mother was a band manager,so he speaks, has spoken a lot
(03:34):
about how music was a huge uhinfluence upon him and in his
household generally.
Um, but the thing about livingin uh on the on the wrong side
of the iron curtain, so to speak, is that you know, it's very
difficult for one to becomeaware of all of the things that
(03:54):
you are denied by virtue ofliving there.
Um, the things that you areexposed to are invariably things
that the overriding system willallow you to be to be exposed
to.
So.
So a very key thing happened toKunath when he was 12.
He moved, his family moved toWest Germany, and this would
(04:16):
have been in 1986 or thereabouts, so a sort of classic decade,
if you like, for an explosion ofsort of cultural attitudes,
consumerism, et cetera, in aaffluent country which, of
course, would have been ripe forreceiving all of these things.
And one of the things, ofcourse, uh, this sort of uh very
(04:44):
um impressionable age um is the, is that the kind of uh utopia
of communism uh would have beenproven to be a fallacy.
So when he is uh in his laterteens, um, he goes to the
Braunschweig University of Art,which is a specialist uh art
college, a well-renowned one Um,and anecdotally uh, I
(05:07):
understand that it was hismother who made the application
for him.
She had seen that he was umskilled at making drawings, that
he was content, you know,constantly doing this Um, and
that perhaps this would be agood uh vocational choice for
him.
So I understand that she madethe application, perhaps even
largely unbeknownst to him, andthen he was accepted, so then
(05:31):
subsequently went to study there, and whilst he was studying
there he was mentored by apainter, a member of the faculty
, by the name of Walter Dahn,who was himself a protege of
Joseph Beuys, by the name ofWalter Dahn, who was himself a
protege of Joseph Beuys.
And Dahn was a leading memberof an expressionist expressive
painting movement from the early80s, and the 80s was a decade
(05:55):
which witnessed a strong revivalin painting, and expressive
painting in particular, and hewas part of a group that came to
be dubbed the Neue Wildes,which literally is translated as
the new wild ones, but is morecommonly known as the new foes,
(06:15):
and this movement was involvedin making just what they termed
bad paintings rapid, expressive,coarse, crude paintings, and
the sole purpose of which wassort of designed to interrogate
whether there was actually anypoint to making paintings at all
.
The work has been described ascultural anthropology, which I
(06:38):
take to mean its tendency tosynthesize, analyze all the
visual ideologies of art andalso everyday culture within
these paintings, and of courseit's a term that we can well, as
we get more into looking atKunath's work, we can understand
that perhaps it's a useful termthrough which to understand his
(06:59):
work as well.
After he graduated, he traveledto the USA, a typical rites of
passage road trip across this um, this sort of fabled uh nation.
He um ended up in San Diego uh,where he and some friends begin
(07:25):
an underground nightclub whichproves extremely popular with
the sort of bohemian subcultureand all the arty kids.
But it's a culture, of course,that is a very nocturnal,
somewhat riotous one um,somewhat riotous uh one Um, and
(07:51):
we can um fast forward to 2003and uh Kunath's liver and
pancreas um are at the pointwhere they have other ideas and
he has been sufficientlyintoxicated um pickling himself,
essentially Um, so he has todecide that he must stop living
this way if he is to perhapseven survive, certainly to be
(08:14):
healthy.
So he determines to do this andhe gets himself straightened
out and he then begins his artcareer in earnest.
Jeppe Curth (08:23):
And he then begins his art career in earnest.
Okay, thanks for the background.
As he begins his art career,can you tell us what central
themes he explores in his work?
What is it about them thatmakes them compelling to
collectors almost from thebeginning?
Nicholas Robinson (08:38):
Well, I think that, well, the purpose of this
podcast is to talk in the mainabout his paintings, but Kunath
Irv does span not only painting,drawing, installation,
sculpture, video, where he sortof explodes his aesthetic
universe and kind of surroundsus with all of these visual
(09:00):
influences.
And I think, um, if we, if wesummarize his, his, the feel of
his work, um, it's to say thatthey are um highbrow and lowbrow
simultaneously.
They are romantic but alsoconceptual Um, they are, of
course, informed by his ownpersonal history, but also, uh,
(09:22):
music, uh, the history ofpainting, german romanticism and
American pop culture.
So they are, they are tradition, traditional and modern at the
same time and they, theyillustrate tragedy, comedy,
romance, love loss, yearning,aspiration, melancholy, euphoria
(09:44):
, and they shift between all ofthese, these sort of tones on
the emotional register, um, andthen they kind of occupy a space
in between sort of irony andsatire, um, where they can feel
a little bit sort of tongue incheek and a bit cloying,
sometimes also sincerity.
(10:04):
So they sometimes can feel veryprofound, very uplifting, and
he's very adept at kind ofinhabiting the space in between
all of these sentiments okay, sothis wide range of emotion is
one of his things he's known for.
Jeppe Curth (10:20):
How does he achieve this, and can you maybe tell us
more about his paintings ingeneral?
What do they look like, what dothey tell us, and maybe also,
what technique does he use tomake them?
Nicholas Robinson (10:34):
Yes, I think that we can't understand
Kunath's paintings withoutunderstanding the sort of
fundamental building block ofbuilding blocks of his work, and
that usually is a romanticlandscape, and I mean romantic
in the sort of purest classicalsense.
And if we're going tounderstand what Romanticism
(10:59):
means, we have to rewind to themiddle of the 18th century.
And in 1757, a Britishphilosopher by the name of
Edmund Burke wrote a treatiseand this was called A
Philosophical Inquiry into theOrigin of Our Ideas of the
sublime and the beautiful.
So, according to Burke, thebeautiful is that which is
(11:20):
well-formed and aestheticallypleasing, maybe like a Greek
sculpture or something like this.
But the sublime is that whichhas the power to overwhelm us,
to compel us and even destroy us.
Compel us and even destroy us,um, really, it's sort of
(11:41):
summarizes the presence ofalmighty God and his hand in the
awesomeness of nature.
And this period in culturalhistory sort of indicates the uh
, or marks the transition fromthe neoclassical to the romantic
era.
And so you have all theseartists that become inspired by
this idea in Britain, artistslike John Martin, William Blake,
(12:07):
for instance, but possibly thegreatest of all, arguably the
greatest known of all, is aGerman painter, was a German
painter by the name of CasparDavid Friedrich, and Friedrich
was a master at painting sublimelandscapes, just incredible
scenes of the majesty of nature.
(12:27):
But what he also did is hefrequently placed a small or
somewhat insignificant figure ofa man, often just a single man,
who was simultaneously awed andcontemplative when considering
the nature in front of him, butalso rendered small and
(12:51):
insignificant by this might allaround him.
So these feelings thatFriedrich is very adept at
evoking in us are also echoed byKunath, and Kunath has an
incredible technical facilityfor making paintings that can
(13:12):
replicate or ape this kind ofvery pure classical landscape.
And then what he doessubsequently is he overlays all
of these elements thatillustrate an altogether
different set of influences, andthese are things that we can
(13:32):
summarize, as you know, thingsthat he's derived from
commercial culture, advertising,illustration, music, record
labels, album covers, cartoons.
One motif that recurs frequentlyis actually something from a
cartoon made in Czechoslovakiain the late 50s.
(13:55):
There's a character called theLittle Mole, actually actually,
which, which won the award forthe best directing achievement
at the Venice film festival in1957.
Um, but this little character,um, he never spoke in the
cartoons.
His, his emotional life and hisexperiences were always
communicated by um, these sortof non-figurative exclamations
(14:17):
and through incidental music.
So, um, this is how weunderstood what the little mole
was was going through.
And the little mole crops up inmany of kunath's paintings.
Um, I guess you could even, youcould even sort of stretch the
the um analogy to sort of saythat, you know, he's also
representative of, of of West.
(14:38):
This is a character created incommunist Czechoslovakia, but
it's a character that isinspired by the way Disney used
to imbue animal characters withsort of human personalities,
(15:00):
with sort of human personalities.
So it's also, of course,indicative of having this very,
you know, elevated, high fineart landscape and then all of
these more sort of lowbrowstreet smarts, you know a more
kind of not a base culture but amuch more mainstream everyday
popular culture.
And then what he subsequentlydoes is he writes phrases on his
(15:23):
paintings, or paints phrases,and these phrases are designed
to summarize, you know, the moodof the painting.
Sometimes they are sort of verywistful and very vague,
sometimes they're very sort ofpithy and precise and they, you
know, they're sort of aphorisms,that kind of encapsulate maybe
the vibe of what Kunath istrying to communicate, or what
(15:43):
he thinks the painting is aboutwhen he made the first of such
works.
This was actually just a phrasepainting.
It had no landscape behind it.
No landscape, um, uh, behind it, um.
In in 2003,.
The paintings phrase and titlewas um, if you leave me, can I
(16:04):
come to?
So?
This, of course, is is anexample of this sort of wistful
witticism uh at play, um.
Other phrases, uh.
Some examples are I restored mywill to live again.
I don't worry anymore.
It's been evening all day long.
I'd never thought I'd make itthis far.
So you have all of these kindsof phrases that summarize the
(16:26):
mood that Kunath is trying tocommunicate, encompassing
especially sort of melancholyand euphoria, often within the
same painting.
Sometimes the phrases are veryambiguous.
He's a big fan of tennis and hehas utilized some of the
(16:46):
language of tennis also in someof these phrases.
One such one would be I need abreak Now.
In life, we all need a break,but in tennis, if you wish to
win, we all need a break.
But in tennis, if you wish towin, you have to break your
opponent's serve in order totriumph.
So this is an example of howhis sort of play on words is
(17:06):
functioning.
And then another example wouldbe.
Love means zero.
Obviously, in tennis, zero is,or sorry, love is synonymous
with having no points.
Love, of course, is a mightything, but Kunath equates it to
zero in order to kind of createthis ambiguity within this pun.
So these are essentially whathis paintings look like and what
(17:29):
they consist of, and then hewill bury other little sort of
gems or witticisms or vignetteswithin the painting.
He will turn his paintbrusharound and he will use the back
end of the paintbrush as astylus to inscribe sort of
graffito-like little moments inthe painting.
Sometimes they're phrases thatsort of refer to the main title,
(17:52):
sometimes they're littlecartoons, they're just lots of
little sort of treats, eastereggs, if you like.
That you can find.
You stand back from thepainting and you perceive this
sort of overarching feel of thelandscape.
But then you approach thepainting and you scrutinize it
at a much closer distance andyou get to discover all of these
(18:12):
sort of visual treats thatKunath has sort of semi-buried
within the surface, sometimesvery heavy impasto encrusting on
the surface.
You know they're very painterlyas well.
Jeppe Curth (18:30):
So Kunath has gained more and more attention
in the recent years.
Why do you think his workresonates so strongly with
collectors?
Nicholas Robinson (18:41):
Well, I think that his paintings,
qualitatively, are justoutstanding.
I mean, he's a reallytremendously great painter and
the paintings are beautiful tolook at but they're also sort of
entertaining to discover.
So they work on these sort ofmany levels.
They work on this very elevatedaesthetic level through, you
(19:02):
know, by virtue of his justimmense skill at rendering a
landscape.
And then they have all of thesesort of multi-layered, playful
elements which, you know, speakvery profoundly of all of the
things we're familiar with aspart of, you know, what art
historians or philosophers liketo call, you know, the human
experience.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that hispaintings are well, as well as
(19:27):
being universal in that way,they're also quite universal in
a sort of a geographic way.
The paintings have this, youknow, sort of unmistakable
European feel because of thenature of the landscape, but
they have all of these overlaidelements which speak very much
(19:48):
to like an American sensibility.
I mean, he is an artist, he's aEuropean artist who lives in Los
Angeles, and his paintings arealmost as much, you know, la, uh
, american paintings as they areEuropean paintings.
I mean, if you look at thehistory of um modern and
contemporary art in America andalso in, especially in the West
(20:11):
coast, from the midpoint of the20th century, we can see a very
distinctive kind of pop artemerging.
We have sort of assemblage,which he's also very adept at
incorporating, even though Imean he has done, but he doesn't
typically kind of adherephysical objects to the surface
of his paintings.
This is much more part of hiskind of installation feel that
(20:34):
explodes out of his vision.
But what he does do is he useswords, in the same way that
we've seen artists like, perhapslike Ed Ruscha, use words.
So his paintings are, you know,they're perfect for a European
sensibility, they're perfect foran American sensibility and
because they encapsulate all ofthose things, they're also
(20:57):
invariably perfect for an Asiansensibility which has, you know,
historically and certainly inmore recent years, been a
voracious consumer of, you know,things that have a well like a
almost like a cartoon feelcoming out of the United States
(21:20):
the United States.
Jeppe Curth (21:20):
Can you tell us about his place in the market,
which galleries shows his workor represent him, and do you
think his career will have somenext step or another level, and
what do you think that will be?
Nicholas Robinson (21:28):
Well, his galleries, I mean he's had a.
He's been exhibitingconsistently now for 20 years,
so he's obviously been makinghis way through a number of
galleries.
During that time he's, you know, he's exhibited a strong, um,
professional mobility where he'ssort of graduated from one
gallery to another gallery ashis, as he's progressively got
(21:50):
better and his reputation hasgrown Um, uh.
Up until a few years ago heshowed withenig in Germany, but
latterly shows with Max Hetzler,which I suppose is one of the
greatest galleries in Europe andhas been for quite some time.
Hetzler's, a legendary gallery,was the first gallery to show
(22:14):
Jeff Koons in Europe 30 yearsago.
I mean, he's been doing histhing for a long time, so this
is obviously a great gallerywith an impeccable reputation
and a big following and reach.
He shows with Tim Van Leer inAntwerp, which is a very nice
(22:34):
gallery.
He shows with Arles Carl herein Copenhagen, which is one of
the better galleries here.
He shows with a gallery calledTrevisio Quattro in.
They're in Madrid and in Mexicoand they're an excellent
gallery too.
And these are all mostly Baselgalleries or galleries that
(22:56):
exhibit in Art Basel.
So obviously his work iscontinually exposed to the sort
of highest caliber of artaudience and consumer that there
is.
And his next step?
Well, I think that we're yet toreally see exactly what that
(23:16):
will be, to really see exactlywhat that will be.
But if you look at the statusquo of his current exhibiting
career, it includes, you know,tremendously good galleries in
Los Angeles, in Germany Hetzleris also in London and then of
(23:41):
course, other important markets,but of course slightly more
peripheral markets to where themain action takes place.
So I think really the missingpiece, if we can call it that,
is a substantial exhibition inNew York, um, and obviously
there are some very majorgalleries there that have their
(24:01):
the sort of the preeminentlocations, um, for prestige, for
, you know, the eyes of the artworld being on them, uh, et
cetera.
So I I think that you know his,his career has been a very
stable and has shown a reallystrong yet steady trajectory to
(24:21):
this point.
So he's obviously smart atunderstanding what he needs and
plotting his next moves and he'she's also got the you know, the
support of really substantialgalleries behind him.
So it can't be lost on any ofthese people that having that
kind of show in New York is isimportant to his next steps, and
(24:44):
I, and I expect that somethingthat will will happen.
His work is now sort ofcrystallized to the point where
he's absolutely in his sort offully mature style.
Um, you know, he's, he's, he's.
His paintings have all the thethe elements that I've described
, but also an incredible sort ofpainterly richness which speaks
(25:05):
of someone at the top of theirgame.
Um, and and there are galleriesin New York that know this um,
he's not some sort of stealthysurprise lurking in the far
corners of the art world, he's a, he's a.
He's a famed artist ofincredible talent and with a
very distinctive aesthetic.
(25:26):
Um, and I imagine that in thenext year or two, there'll be a
major show in New York atprobably one of the best
galleries in the world.
Jeppe Curth (25:35):
Yeah, and maybe we could also talk a little bit
about his prices.
His current auction record isaround $118,000 for 2.13m by
1.52m, which is not that strong.
But how do you see thesecondary market and also his
primary market prices?
Nicholas Robinson (25:56):
Well, he's a very interesting artist in that
there does not, there's not avery strong secondary market at
this point in time.
He has, his works have beenbeen, sort of, you know,
devotedly acquired by collectorsthat, firstly, love the work.
And so, you know, we understandit, we live with his paintings,
(26:18):
we look at them every day.
You know, we understand it, welive with his paintings, we look
at them every day.
We would not be keen to nolonger be able to do that in
order to get you know, whateverprofit we could get.
We, we, we, we value the worksat this point more than than we
would value that, um.
But I think that paintings thathave come up for auction and
paintings that appear on thesecondary market often are
(26:42):
earlier works that are maybe youcould say are sort of
transitional works aesthetically, and not fully emblematic,
qualitatively, of the maturestyle which, which we now see,
which we now see, and the maturestyle now, of course, has
synthesized all of theseelements that I've described and
(27:03):
and that is what has enabledhim to basically make the step
up to being an artist whoconsistently delivers this level
of quality in every paintingand who, um, certainly,
certainly for quite some timenow manages to sell out every
exhibition, and not only that,but the galleries that have
(27:30):
these exhibitions.
They have the luxury often ofchoosing who they sell the
paintings to, which, of course,is another element that sort of
supports and substantiates thestability and well-managed
nature of his career.
So paintings that have croppedup before are not of that
(27:52):
standard.
Often they lack the very thickhandling of paint in the impasto
which gives them a real tactilerichness, a much drier surface,
much more graphic qualityperhaps.
And then other paintings thathave cropped up.
You know, kunath does make somequite large paintings and if a
(28:13):
very big painting comes up,invariably it has a somewhat
limited audience, because a bigpainting is also quite an
impractical thing to accommodate.
You know, if you've got, youknow, a three meter painting, a
lot of people think well, I lovethe painting, but where am I
going to put it?
So it, you know it, naturallylimits the potential resale
market for the work.
(28:34):
So that's a little bit why hissecondary market is not super
strong.
His paintings are extremelylabor intensive.
He doesn't make that many ofthem and most of the works that
he has made remain with thepeople that have bought them
because they continue to lovethem and they want to keep them.
And the primary market of hispaintings is sort of interesting
(28:57):
because he shows every year andthe prices go up every year.
They don't go up by an app, youknow a sort of a uh, um, you
know meteoric amount.
They go up by small, sensible,manageable increments to um, to
sustain the level of demand, to,to, to create you know a very
(29:17):
well-managed market for hispaintings.
As an example, a current sortof two meter 20 painting would
be about $110,000.
A one and a half meter paintingwould be $85,000.
And it's not too long ago,maybe 18 months ago, that a one
(29:42):
and a half meter painting thatis now $85,000 would have been
$75,000.
And then a year before that,two years before that, $65,000.
So they go up by thesemanageable increments 10, 15%
each time moving his his careerforwards.
A one meter 20 size painting is$70,000.
(30:04):
Now it remains to be seenexactly what they will cost in
the shows that he is to havethis year and next year.
Jeppe Curth (30:11):
Okay, thank you, nick, for the walkthrough in the
in the prizes.
How do you, how do Kunitzprices compared to similar
contemporary artists and whatdoes he say about his place in
the market?
Sometimes we talk about theopportunity cost, right?
Nicholas Robinson (30:24):
well, yes, of course, I mean anything,
anything that that we spendmoney on is, you know, money
that we then obviously can'tspend on something else?
Um, but I think Kunath'spaintings are somewhat
reasonable.
Um, this is an artist who hasbeen consistently showing in
top-ranking galleries for 20years.
His first museum show was in2009, 15 years ago, at the
(30:48):
Kunstverein in Hanover.
His work is in the CarnegieMuseum in Pittsburgh, pompidou
in Paris, the D'Este in Athens,hammer, la LACMA, la MoMA, pinot
Collection in Paris, walker ArtCenter.
I mean, his paintings areglobally acknowledged as being
worthy of these, theseprestigious institutions.
(31:10):
So obviously he's he's.
He's a top, top artist and, aswe've described, a mid-career
artist who has achieved thisstatus consistently.
So I think that his work isactually somewhat reasonable.
There are many artists who havea lesser CV than Kunath, but
(31:30):
maybe their work is a littlemore conforming to some I don't
know, fashionable movement orother.
I mean, we see artists thatcome from nowhere and their
paintings are suddenly two,three, $400,000.
Um, and I think that there's agreat deal of market potential
for these works.
They're not, you know, they're.
It's easy to see them also asextremely finely crafted objects
(31:54):
.
You know, this is a master ofpainting.
Kunath is, is is a master ofpainting and so qualitatively
you can, you can always sort ofdefend a price when you, when
you see that someone has aunique skill in making it.
So I feel that I feel that theprimary market for Kunath's
paintings is is reasonable, thepaintings are not cheap.
(32:15):
But you know, when you get aKunath painting you never, you
never, do not feel that it'sbeen money well spent.
Jeppe Curth (32:29):
When we look at the work from both an aesthetic and
a financial perspective, how doyou see Kunath's work fitting
into a thoughtful, well-createdart collection?
Nicholas Robinson (32:39):
Well, I think that I think, I think that I
think we've, I think we'vecovered that really.
I mean, his paintings, as we'vedemonstrated, they are, you
know, they're, they're exquisiteobjects.
They are, they, they, they showa certain sort of deafness and
technical facility that is, youknow, really really up there.
This is, these are likebeautiful, sumptuous things to
(33:02):
look at.
Um, obviously, they, they, asI've said, they work from a,
from a sort of a pure paintingperspective, but they also work
from a conceptual perspective.
These are very contemporaryobjects, um, and so, you know,
of course, if you're acontemporary art collector, you
often have lots of quite diversethings or things that, at least
(33:26):
you know, are very different tolook at from each other.
I mean, kunath's paintings, youknow, can, of course, exist
comfortably alongside you knowanything.
I think that, like I, like Imentioned a second ago that they
are, that they're reasonable,they're the his career, his, his
price point is absolutelymerited by his career and and
(33:47):
arguably, prices, you know,could easily have been
significantly higher, could evenhave been a hundred percent
higher, and people wouldn'tthink, you know, oh, where did
this price come from?
I mean, he's had the trajectorywhere you could justifiably say
, well, this is where he's gotto.
So you know, all of thesethings, of course, remain to be
(34:07):
seen, but the trajectory, aswe've demonstrated, is not over.
It's now, hopefully for him andfor his fans, you know about to
come to a new level.
Jeppe Curth (34:20):
So for someone who is new to Kunert's works, where
or what would be the best way tostart exploring them?
Nicholas Robinson (34:27):
Well, I mean, I think obviously all of these
galleries will have informationabout the exhibitions that
they've hosted of his work.
Actually, there's a gallery thatI forgot to mention, which is
my mistake, but the first sortof big gallery that showed his
work was uh, uh, bloom, uh,bloom and Poe, as it used to be,
um.
They discovered his work, um, inBasel, in Art Basel, in the
(34:52):
statements section, in 2003,which back then was like a real
sort of I don't know, I don'tknow what you call it a real
incubator for new talent and aplace where galleries would be
able to go and scout out thingsthat they would really want to
discover and explore workingwith.
So he showed, with them, and ifyou go to that gallery's website
(35:18):
I mean, they've shown his worknow probably a dozen times,
certainly eight or nine, tentimes over many years, and so if
you look at the exhibitions,the exhibition pages that he's
had with them on their website,you'll be able to see the visual
progression of his work.
You'll be able to see some ofthe more highly sophisticated
(35:43):
sort of Wunderkammerinstallations that he has made,
which have parlayed very wellinto institutional settings, and
then, of course, you'll be ableto see the press releases that
accompany each of those showsfor you to understand.
You know thematically what he'strying to achieve with those
exhibitions and how his ideasand his aesthetic have changed
(36:04):
and developed and evolved reallythroughout the entirety of his
mature working life.
Jeppe Curth (36:10):
Yes, thank you, nick.
I think we covered the most ofKuna.
Do you have anything to add?
Nicholas Robinson (36:16):
No, I think I think that pro, that's probably
it.
There's.
Have anything to add?
No, I think I think that pro,that's probably it.
Um, there's.
There's a quote that kunath hassaid, uh, or a statement that
he's made about his own work,which I think is is kind of fun,
and it really, to me at least,summarizes the way that he's
able to, you know, hit the highnights, high notes and the low
notes with the sort of tones ofhis painting.
(36:37):
He said if I could place mypainting somewhere between Oasis
and Johann Sebastian Bach, Iwould be a happy man.
Jeppe Curth (36:46):
Now, obviously, that's that's a mic drop.
Nicholas Robinson (36:50):
Yeah, it is.
It says well, we're credit tohim for that.
Of course, you know, I supposeonly he could so humorously
distill and reduce his entiresort of achievement into such a
an entertaining little littlephrase.
But that's what he's done, andthat's what you know, we, we
think he does.
So I suppose we could, we couldsay you know he, he should be a
(37:10):
happy man because that's that's, that's what he's managed to do
.
Jeppe Curth (37:14):
Thank you, nick, once again for letting me
picking your brain.
Nicholas Robinson (37:17):
Thanks, yes, no, it's been a pleasure.
We love Kunath and it's reallynice to always think about what
he does.
Yes, we do so.
Jeppe Curth (37:27):
if you have any questions you want to get in
contact, please write to us atinfo at nordicaartpuddlescom.
See you next time.
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