Harvard Art Museums > 2009.54: Questions for my Father #4 Drawings Collections Search Exit Deep Zoom Mode Zoom Out Zoom In Reset Zoom Full Screen Add to Collection Order Image Copy Link Copy Citation Citation"Questions for my Father #4 (Karl Haendel) , 2009.54,” Harvard Art Museums collections online, May 07, 2024, https://hvrd.art/o/331616. Reuse via IIIF Toggle Deep Zoom Mode Download This object does not yet have a description. Identification and Creation Object Number 2009.54 People Karl Haendel, American (New York born 1976) Title Questions for my Father #4 Classification Drawings Work Type drawing Date 2008 Culture American Persistent Link https://hvrd.art/o/331616 Physical Descriptions Medium Graphite on paper Dimensions 157.5 x 114.3 cm (62 x 45 in.) Inscriptions and Marks Signed: On verso in pencil: Haendel 2008 inscription: On verso in graphite : questions for my father #4, 08 inscription: Signed, on verso, in graphite: Haendel 2008 Provenance Recorded Ownership History [Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York], sold; to Harvard Art Museum, 2009. Acquisition and Rights Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund Copyright © Karl Haendel Accession Year 2009 Object Number 2009.54 Division Modern and Contemporary Art Contact am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu Permissions The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request. Descriptions Commentary Haendel is a young Los Angeles-based artist whose primary mode is drawing. His work is usually large in scale and done with a simple graphite pencil. Interested in American social history and popular culture his work is exceedingly legible in terms of subject matter. This drawing is one of a suite of 4 works entitled "Questions for My Father." Each drawing is a list of personal questions, the kind usually only asked by adult friends and lovers of one another, but here Haendel has presented these questions as if to his Father. They are disarming and strikingly intimate, exposing the still taboo nature of father-son intimacy and closeness, stretching the boundaries of propriety by mixing the so-called personal and political together. The questions speak to a kind of generational chasm, as well as to the profound unknowableness of the other, particularly those we assume are, or should be, most close to us. This tension between public and private is exacerbated by the intensely hand made quality of the drawing, up to and including the artist's own "copyediting" of the questions, and the typewriter style precision with which the words and text are laid out on the page, seemingly with no guiding lines or erasure. Like many artists of his generation, his work continues certain aspects of conceptual art-the use of language, a foregrounding of the artist's labor-but differs demonstrably from the arid or bureaucratic nature of conceptual art through its pursuit of emotional affect and handmade sensibility. Verification Level This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
