Opening reception: September 19th | 6pm-8pm

Adrian Rosenfeld is pleased to announce Jannis Kounellis & Felix Schramm, the next exhibition at his gallery in San Francisco. The show features two artists whose personal and professional lives were connected for more than twenty-five years. They met at the prestigious Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where Schramm studied under Kounellis from 1994-1998. Relationships between professors and students at the Kunstakademie manifest as rich mentorships, many of which have influenced the trajectory of modern and contemporary art. Throughout his studies and their time together discussing art and ideas, Schramm and Kounellis developed a lifelong friendship.

A founding member of arte povera, Kounellis spent decades devising new ways to bring the natural world (animals, climatic shifts, geological forces, time) and physical sensation (smell, sound, movement) to bear on visual art. Schramm shares Kounellis’s interest in the aesthetic potential of commonplace sites and materials. For this exhibition, Schramm will break through the gallery walls in an architectural intervention designed especially for the San Francisco space. Built from the matter of everyday architecture—drywall, paint, wood—his construction of planar shards tumbles into the viewer’s space, confusing expectations as it draws attention to the engineering know-how and sculpting skill responsible for modern architecture. 

Both artists overturn the idea of the white-cube gallery as a pristine site immune to the contingencies of real-world events and history. Instead, their works comprise candid presentations of mundane materials that elicit richly allusive, multi-sensory experiences. Jannis Kounellis & Felix Schramm is a rare opportunity to see the work by these long-time colleagues and friends paired together. It brings to life the unique ways artists communicate and push one another into uncharted creative terrain.

For images or more information, please contact the gallery at info@adrianrosenfeld.com or (415) 285-2841. The gallery is open Tuesday-Friday 10AM-6PM and Saturday 11AM-5PM. The exhibition will be on view from Friday, September 20, 2019 - Saturday, October 26, 2019.