LACY SOTO | DATE 7/12/2026

Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles Bookstore presents Karl Haendel, Andrea Gyorody and Aldy Milliken on 'Less Bad'

Sunday, July 12 at 3 PM, Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles Bookstore presents the L.A. book launch of Less Bad, with artist Karl Haendel in conversation with Andrea Gyorody and Aldy Milliken. Less Bad is a volume published to accompany Karl Haendel’s eponymous exhibition, which originated at the Kimball Art Center in autumn 2024 and traveled to the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University in Spring 2025. The catalogue highlights key thematic elements from Haendel’s 25-year artistic output, focusing on his exploration of masculinity, tenderness, friendship introspection, and vulnerability through drawing.

RSVP here for free. *Please note that space is limited to 50 seats.

Pre-order a signed copy here.

The book includes a complete set of installation images from the exhibition, plates highlighting essential works, and selected details of drawings. These stand at the heart of a special section of the book, which underlines through images Haendel’s approach, process, materials, and distinctive installation strategy. The volume is enriched by an introduction by Aldy Milliken; a scholarly essay on Haendel’s work by Dr. Andrea Gyorody, contextualizing it within the recent trajectory of contemporary art; an illustrated essay by Hazel Haendel, the artist’s daughter; a conversation between the artist and Analia Saban; and brief creative contributions by artists Darren Bader, Karla Diaz, Michelle Jane Lee, and Ray Anthony Barrett.

Karl Haendel is an artist who makes drawings, installations, films, and public projects. He received a BA from Brown University in 1998 and a MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2003, and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He has been included in the Biennial of the Americas (2015), the Whitney Biennial (2014), Biennale de Lyon (2013), Prospect (2011), and the California Biennial (2004, 2008). His work is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Guggenheim Museum, NY; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, MA, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany and the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway. He has been the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, and the California Community Foundation. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Andrea Gyorody is a curator, writer, and cultural strategist whose work explores abstraction, politics, religion, and cultural memory in modern and contemporary art. She has held curatorial positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, and most recently served as director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, where she secured a $2.49 million Lilly Endowment grant for a five-year project examining rites of passage and religious identity. Major curatorial projects include Joseph Beuys: In Defense of Nature (2024–25, The Broad, co-curated with Sarah Loyer); Forms Larger and Bolder: Eva Hesse Drawings (2019–22, co-curated with Barry Rosen); and Afterlives of the Black Atlantic (2019–20, AMAM, co-curated with Matthew Francis Rarey), which received an Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Curatorial Excellence. She has also curated solo exhibitions of Makoto Fujimura, Karl Haendel, Cameron Harvey, Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson, Jeni Spota C., and Isabel Yellin. She is a frequent contributor to Artforum and her writing has also appeared in Hyperallergic, ARTnews, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, and numerous exhibition catalogues. She holds a PhD in Art History from UCLA.

Aldy Milliken has worked in the art sector as a museum director, curator, gallerist, educator, and artist since the mid-1980s. Before settling in Park City, Utah in July 2020 as Executive Director of Kimball Art Center, Milliken directed KMAC Contemporary Museum in Louisville, KY, and founded an eponymous gallery in Stockholm, Sweden in 1998. Milliken has served on accreditation teams for the American Alliance of Museums and mentored museum professionals through the Museum Leadership Institute, formerly the Getty Leadership Institute. His collaborations with Karl Haendel began around 2007.

Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles Bookstore
Karl Haendel: Less Bad
Sunday, July 12 at 3 PM PST
917 E. 3rd Street
Los Angeles CA 90013
213-988-7413
RSVP and pre-order a signed book here.