Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality
a Solo Show by Karl Haendel

I have been assembling an archive of 35mm slides since 2000. All of the slides are photographs I took myself (usually on a copy stand) of images, texts, and objects, each of which becomes a “potential” drawing (the practice for which I am best known). There are nearly 10,000 slides now. About 6 years ago my assistant and I began to categorize them (there are maybe 200 categories and subcategories) and file them. But I only recently realized that the slides kind of tell my story; as an artist, collector, editor, and even a lot about my personality. I’ve attached the master list of categories (it also includes the “print archive” category names, which technically is a little different) and you’ll see what I mean. Reading the list sort of tells you what my concerns are, in a distanced and objective (yet funny) manner. I think they also tell you something about navigating a messy world with too much information, and how one comes to make sense, and ultimately meaning, from it. They transcend interest and likes, become about choices and values. How we as a culture make meaning is at the center of my work, and this slide archive shows how over the past decade I have tried to do so myself.
-Karl Haendel