On Saturday, October 7th, downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) will proudly unveil their next major solo show, titled Because I Wanted You To Know, featuring all-new works from the award-winning, international renowned German artist duo Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk [coarse].
Marking coarse’s debut at CHG, the show will feature limited-edition original pieces (sculpted in resin, wood, and other mixed media, with their signature sharp lines, smooth curves, and extreme attention to detail) ‒ each meticulously handmade over hundreds of hours in the artists’ studio based in Frogtown, Los Angeles.
For over 20 years, the artist duo collectively known as coarse has been carving new paths in the tradition of sculptural storytelling. By exploring cultural motifs and sculpting with an architectural precision, the artists embrace their German heritage; but simultaneously they rebel against it, painting with intense colors and employing a sense of levity even when examining heavy themes. coarse takes the melancholy and visual simplicity inherent to German art and fuses it with a sophisticated sense of irreverence, resulting in multi-faceted sculptures and a distinctively unique aesthetic.
(hand-painted resin, American walnut wood, metal, corian – 22″ x 15″ x 16″)
(hand-painted resin, American walnut wood, metal, corian – 22″ x 15″ x 16″)
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 colorful 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.
(hand-painted resin, metal, corian – 17.1″ x 9.3″ x 9.1″)
(hand-painted resin, plexiglass, 24 karat gold leaf, pearled coating accents, corian, metal – 47.25” x 16” x 19.2”)
“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.”
Landwehr 
(hand-painted resin, plexiglass, corian, metal – 25.5” x 15” x 15”)
On social media, coarse has started sharing sneak peeks into their upcoming show at CHG. Below you can watch a time-lapse video offering a glimpse into the hundreds of steps the duo put into creating their one-of-a-kind sculptures. In one video, detailing their new piece “I’ll Show You Mine” (seen above), coarse shares:“With an explosion of fruits and creams drifting into the air, this piece is an exaggeration of a blissful moment, celebrating an aggrandized self-perception but subtly satirizing it, too. In conversation with Takashi Murakami’s [sculpture] ‘My Lonesome Cowboy,’ this sculpture is a sequel to our 2018 piece, ‘If You Show Me Yours.’”
Open to the public and free of charge, Because I Wanted You To Know is set to debut on Saturday, October 7th from 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm in CHG’s Main Gallery. Kazuki Takamatsu will open the same night in the Main Gallery with his new exhibition Parallelization Era. Also opening is the gallery’s second installment of their Literartistry group show, titled Literartistry: Art Inspired by the Written Word,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.
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. Sculpted in resin, wood, and other mixed media, each sculpture is meticulously handmade over hundreds of hours in the artists’ Los Angeles studio.
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. Says Hypebeast, “The workings of Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk…seemingly accomplishes the impossible, as their raw, chiseled sculptures all but come to life in three-dimensional form.”
About Corey Helford Gallery:
Established in 2006 by Jan Corey Helford and her husband, television producer/creator Bruce Helford (The Conners, Lopez vs. Lopez, Anger Management, The Drew Carey Show, and George Lopez), Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) has since evolved into one of the premier galleries of New Contemporary art. Its goal as an institution is to support 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 and collectively encompassing style genres such as New Figurative Art, Pop Surrealism, Neo Pop, Graffiti, and Street Art. Located in downtown Los Angeles (571 S. Anderson St. Los Angeles, CA 90033) in a robust 12,000 square-foot building, CHG presents new exhibitions approximately every six weeks. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm. For more info and an upcoming exhibition schedule, visit CoreyHelfordGallery.com.
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