Vielmetter Los Angeles is pleased to present Karl Haendel’s solo exhibition Glass half, the artist’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. The artist asked his daughter Hazel to write the press release for the show:

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.

If you have any interest in coming to the art show, come to the Vielmetter Gallery in Los Angeles between March 14 and April 25, 2026. Although, even if you don’t have interest in coming, you should still come, as it would really make my Papa’s ego feel good.

Karl Haendel was born in 1976 in New York and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from Brown University in 1998 before attending the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He received his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2003.

His work has been included in various biennials and institutional group shows such as Into the Time Horizon, at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2026); Blissfully Miserable, at Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Petach Tikva, Israel (2026); Experience 62: GRIEF, at the Experimentally Structured Museum of Art, Lawndale (2025); On the Passage of a Few People through a Rather Brief Period of Time, at the University Art Gallery, UC Irvine, Irvine (2024); Cowboy, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver (2023); 100 Drawings from Now, at The Drawing Center, New York (2020); Copines-Copains-Berlin, at Wentrup Gallery, Berlin (2019); Game On!, at the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa (2017); Manifest Intention: Drawing In All Its Forms, at Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Torino, Italy (2014); the 2014 Whitney Biennial, New York; and the 12th Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France (2013).

Recent exhibitions include Blind Faith, Hope, Pandora’s Box, Messiahs, at the Wentrup Gallery, Berlin (2025);  Less Bad, at the Frederick Weisman Museum, Pepperdine University, Malibu (2025), Kimball Art Center, Park City (2024); Love and Capital, at Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin (2024); Daily Act of Sustained Empathy, at Vielmetter Los Angeles (2023); Praise New York at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York (2022); Praise Berlin at Wentrup Gallery, Berlin (2022); Feeble Synapse at Sommer Contemporary art, Tel Aviv (2021); Mazel Tov Group at Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2019); Pink Cup and the Facts at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York (with Jay DeFeo) (2017); Karl Haendel and Tony Lewis at LAXArt, Los Angeles (with Tony Lewis) (2016); and Weeks in Wet Sheets at Barbara Seiler, Zurich (2015).

His works are in many public collections including the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Guggenheim Museum, New York.