Corey Helford Gallery Presents Herakut (8/17-9/14)
Of Worriers and Warriors
OPENING RECEPTION
August 17, 2019 | 7pm - 11pm
ON VIEW
August 17 – September 14, 2019
Downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery is proud to announce the return of HERAKUT, the internationally acclaimed artist duo from Germany, who will premiere their next major solo exhibition, entitled Of Worriers and Warriors, on Saturday, August 17th in the Main Gallery. Plus, the duo will be painting a new mural on the exterior wall of the gallery and the show will feature a special installation inside the gallery.
After joining forces in 2004, HERA (Jasmin Siddiqui) and AKUT (Falk Lehmann) merged their names and styles to collaborate as HERAKUT. Since then, the duo has been painting murals all over the world, along with additional work on canvas, paper and film for gallery and museum shows.
For the duo's last solo exhibition at CHG, 2018's Rental Asylum, Juxtapoz interviewed the duo: "For almost 15 years now, HERA (Jasmin Siddiqui) and AKUT (Falk Lehmann) have created one of the most enduring and influential street art duos working in the world today. The German artists have taken HERAKUT from street works to murals, gallery shows to performance, with sculptural works that take their characters from 2D to 3D to everywhere in between."
Regarding their new series, the duo shares: “Looking back at our last show at Corey Helford Gallery in 2018, it seems as if we've released our minds from solitary confinement since then. We dared to read the news again, take in those devastating facts on where our planet is heading, and accept this frightening reality. In great awe, we started following the deeds of environmental and humanitarian activists, who seem to be younger than ever. Inspired by individuals like Greta Thunberg, we created images of fragile beings, who are gathering all their strength and gearing up. These are characters whose intentions are not to attack but to be there as a last line of defense, for all those souls on earth which are even more vulnerable than themselves.”
HERAKUT's Of Worriers and Warriors opens Saturday, August 17th from 7pm-11pm in the Main Gallery. Corey Helford Gallery is hosting two separate openings in August, as the first opening is Saturday, August 10th featuring the premiere of solo shows from Ryan Heshka, entitled FREEKS, in Gallery 2 and from Jana Brike, entitled Soulsearching, in Gallery 3. Vanessa Burgundy will DJ the first opening and Marko DeSantis will handle the soundtrack for the second opening. The gallery’s August line-up is an outstanding combination of artists, each completely and radically different from the others but all aggressively current and emotional, which is the strength of the New Contemporary art scene. Corey Helford Gallery is located at 571 S. Anderson St. Los Angeles, CA 90033 and normal hours are Tuesday – Saturday, from 12pm - 6pm.
About HERAKUT:
After joining forces in 2004, HERA (Jasmin Siddiqui) and AKUT (Falk Lehmann) merged their names and styles to collaborate as HERAKUT. Since then, the duo has been painting murals all over the world, along with additional work on canvas, paper and film for gallery and museum shows. HERAKUT consider themselves “storytellers” who want to share their thoughts and questions with the public, so their figurative work is always accompanied with text. Their process of painting is also a dialogue with both artists adding their individual techniques to the piece.
Described by Widewalls as, "…a symbiosis of the aliases Hera the painter and Akut the graffiti artist whose collaborations formed a fruitful partnership. Having worked together on various successful global art projects, these artists have merged their individual approaches influenced by graffiti and street art. Their artworks can be found in big cities around the world – from Toronto to Kathmandu, from San Francisco to Melbourne. Herakut’s creative art process is sensuous, savage, dialogical and storytelling. This remarkable powerful dualism creates imaginary worlds and inspires their figures with individual characters."
HERAKUT has published two books, The Perfect Merge (2009) and After the Laughter (2011), to great success.
Jasmin Siddiqui was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1981, studied Visual Communication/Graphic Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden, and started doing graffiti in 2000.
Falk Lehmann was born in Schmalkalden, Germany in 1977, studied Visual Communication/Graphic Design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, and started doing graffiti in 1991.
About Corey Helford Gallery:
Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) was first established in 2006 by Jan Corey Helford and her husband, television producer and creator, Bruce Helford (The Conners, Anger Management, The Drew Carey Show, George Lopez) and has since evolved into one of the premier galleries of New Contemporary art. Its goals as an institution are the support and growth of young and emerging, to well-known and internationally established artists.
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. CHG is located in Downtown Los Angeles in a robust 12,000 square foot building presenting new exhibitions approximately every six weeks.
For more info and an upcoming exhibition schedule, visit CoreyHelfordGallery.com and connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
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