Born in Chemnitz, West Germany, in 1974, Friedrich Kunath has been living and working in Los Angeles since 2007. Kunath’s work often evokes the divergent worldviews and emotional states that he has experienced while living in these two places. This work, commissioned for Palazzo Grassi, embodies a particular mindset characterized by Kunath as “tropical depression”: a combination of melancholia with a sense of hopefulness, opposing feelings that are evoked by the sharp contrast between the wintery landscape of the snow-globe and the summery Hawaiian shirt. While it is literally true that, for Kunath, The past is a foreign country, the figure’s imprisoned head and closed eyes suggest a frustrated attempt at denying the past. Through this work, the artist reflects on the promise that Los Angeles has represented for generations of emigrants, which the city itself both fulfills and disappoints, leading to this blend of nostalgia, disappointment and optimism. The adjacent painting If You Follow Every Dream You Might Get Lost similarly blends contrasting images to capture a particular mood, illustrating Kunath’s ability to construct poetic tales through various media.

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