PHILLIPS de PURY & COMPANY ANNOUNCES THE HIGHLIGHTS FROM
ITS FORTHCOMING NEW YORK CONTEMPORARY ART EVENING SALE ON MARCH 4, 2010
NEW YORK AUCTION TO OFFER EXCITING WORKS BY GEORGE CONDO, DOUG AITKEN, KELLEY WALKER, JOHN BALDESSARI, RICHARD PRINCE, TOM WESSELMANN, FRANZ ACKERMANN, JONATHAN MEESE AND GILBERT & GEORGE
AUCTION: MARCH 4, 2010, 7 PM
VIEWING: FEBRARUY 27- MARCH 6 10AM – 6 PM The sale will be held at the company’s New York headquarters: Phillips de Pury & Company, 450 West 15th Street, New York, NY10011 Tel: +1 212 940 1200 www.phillipsdepury.com Kelley Walker, Black Star Press, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York– Phillips de Pury & Company is proud to announce an exceptional offering of works by premier contemporary artists in its forthcoming New York Contemporary Art evening sale on Thursday, March 4th, 2010.
PHILLIPS de PURY & COMPANY Founded in 1766, Phillips de Pury & Company has emerged as one of the world’s leading art companies. The auction house has established itself as a tastemaker in
Contemporary Art, photographs, prints, design and jewelry through its innovative exhibitions and auctions. The company has offices and representatives in twelve cities on three continents, and is renowned for its beautiful and lavish catalogues, Steven Parrino, Scab Noggin , 1988 dynamic architectural exhibition spaces, popular events and record breaking sales.
Led by Simon de Pury, chairman of the company, a key figure in the art market and one of the world’s most talented auctioneers, Phillips de Pury & Company has positioned itself as one of the most important forces in today’s art world.
CONTEMPORARY EVENING SALE
The Contemporary Art Evening Sale will offer 34 lots by key Contemporary artists such as George Condo, Doug Aitken, Kelley Walker, John Baldessari, Richard Prince, Tom Wesselmann, Franz Ackermann, Jonathan Messe and Gilbert & George.
Tom Wesslemann, Study for Bedroom Painting #2, 1967
Contemporary Art Evening Sale Highlights:
A top lot to feature in the sale will be Steven Parrino’s Scab Noggin,1988, (Lot 11), estimated at 400,000-600,000. The present lot by Steven Parrino is an exemplary highlight of the artist’s fascination with tools of contortion within the medium of painting resulting in deconstructed artworks reminiscent of artists such as Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni. In Scab Noggin, Parrino presents a canvas which after being painted, has been literally pulled and twisted away from the “figure” of the stretcher and crumpled. Raw canvas that ordinarily would be pinned behind the painting is suddenly revealed, expressing an aggressive new foreground. The result of this process yields a response inherent to Parrino’s attitude towards his art: autonomous, uncompromising and tough as nails. Gilbert & George, Friend Fear,1983
Tom Wesslemann’s Study for Bedroom Painting #2, 1967, (Lot 19), estimated at $200,000-300,000 will highlight in the sale. Tom Wesselmann developed into one of America’s leading Pop Artist’s of the 20th century, rejecting Abstract Expressionism in favor of the classical representations of the nude, still life and landscape. Wesselmann’s art, defined by its flat forms and intense color fields, was able to retain and highlight the artist’s own unique language of images that defined not only a critical era in the history of art but pushed the boundaries of iconography, Pop aesthetic and representation into the next generation of art. Doug Aitken, i am in you, 2000 Gilbert & George Friend Fear, 1983, (Lot 33), estimated at $150,000-250,000 will also be a highlight in the sale. Gilbert & George met in 1967 at St. Martin’s School of Art in London and since then have been an inseparable pair both in art and in life. Their work of the early 1980s is defined by combining their signature grid pattern with their new use of a vivid color palette. The present work, Friend Fear, painted in 1983, not only exemplifies this form and aesthetic but also the motifs that characterized this period, including the use of tribal images. Gilbert & George’s art has always been an interpretation of modern society but in particular, the work from this period presents a more specific focus on life and death and the hope and fear associated with this. This unique method of examining the broad spectrum of human emotions and existence is what so powerfully defines Gilbert & George.
Using potent images culled from mass media, Kelley Walker’s Black Star Press, 2005, (Lot 5),estimated at $150,000-200,000, works appropriate iconic cultural images, Franz Ackermann, Cowardly Assault, utilizing them to highlight underlying issues of politics and consumerism. In the 1999 present lot, Black Star Press, Walker blows up the image to fill the three canvases with an image of racial unrest. The original photographs were taken during the Birmingham Race Riots in the 1960s, and were then later used by Andy Warhol for a portfolio of silkscreens. Walker silkscreened over the images of a white policeman and black youth with a faux splatter of light and dark chocolate, Walker’s gestures mimic violence and contrast, merging ethical corruption and graffiti pop. As a triptych, Black Star Press desensitizes through repetition, recalling mass media as vast fields of anesthetised brutality.
A further highlight will be, I am in you, 2000, by Doug Aitken (Lot 7) estimated at $150,000-200,000 . J. Heiser in “Beginning to Understand: Doug Aitken’s i am in you,” (New York/London, 2001, p. 108) declared: “In i am in you, it’s like an early learning high chair game is set free from parental guidance, and has developed dramatically into a complex set of sequences smoothly collapsing into one another.”
Lot 20 Franz Ackermann Cowardly Assault, 1999, estimated at $120,000-180,000 will George Condo, Trapped Priest, 2005 also feature as a highlight in the Contemporary Evening sale. M. Meneguzzo, in his article “Franz Ankermann” from Art Forum, April 2001, wrote: “What may on the surface appear as an abstraction inflected by certain constructive or architectural aspects is in reality a representation of “places”— in fact, of cities. The importance of the notion of place in German culture is well known: Heidegger, for example, in his reflection on the origins of being, made it a concept as fundamental as it is mysterious. The idea seduces Ackermann, too; in his work it takes the form of a strange mental mapping in which sensations, impressions, atmospheres, predictions, and prophecies are concretized into color, line, and volume. The paintings are often flanked by photographic fragments that, for a moment, lead the mind to a definite place, a fragment of reality that contrasts with the magmatic delirium of the painting, which, instead, deliberately brings to mind a “non-place. “
George Condo’s sculpture Trapped Priest, 2005, Cast 2006, (Lot 4), estimated at $80,000-120,000 is a golden reliquary to Condo’s experience with religion. A compressed, carcass-like figure sits locked within an overturned grocery cart with its wheels in the air, the cart itself a futile object that incapacitates the damaged priest. The work thus exaggerates the futility Condo sees in his childhood of religion.
Another sale highlight is John Baldessari’s Vertical Series: Attempt, 2003, (Lot 9), John Baldessari, Vertical Series: estimated at $90,000-120,000. John Baldessari’s work has played a large role in Attempt, 2003 defining conceptual art: experimenting with various media to illuminate ideas over product, Baldessari has challenged his viewers’ perspectives of fine art as a creative vehicle. He has long examined the qualities of absence, through reappropriating images removed from context; and by enhancing the missing parts of recognizable images through color and shape. He often inserts words or phrases subjectively, ironically and often humorously, encouraging viewers to consider their own biases and cultural interpretations. The present lot exemplifies this use of language and found imagery by juxtaposing a photograph of a gymnast with the word “ATTEMPT,”her concentrated expression is reduced to futility by a word that alludes to impending failure. Indeed Baldessari succeeds here in illuminating the manipulative qualities of language. Richard Prince, Untitled (Publicity), 2003 Untitled (Publicity), 2003, (Lot 13), by Richard Prince will feature as an important work in the Contemporary Art sale. The work is estimated at, $80,000-120,000. In Untitled (Publicity), Richard Prince juxtaposes one of his iconic cowboy photographs with two publicity photographs of topless cowgirls. The cowboy photograph on the left is an example of Richard Prince’s “rephotography,” his technique of photographing an advertisement, in this case a Marlborough ad, giving the mass-produced image a new life reframing it as high art. Similarly his found publicity photographs, here pin-up Betty Page photographed by Bunny Yeager and pop musician Sheryl Crow, take on new scrutiny when framed alongside his own re- photograph, with the repetition of the cowgirl emphasized, and the images that pop culture presents as truth repositioned to reveal their superficiality. Jonathan Meese, Hagen v. Tronje’s Privatarmee “Scweinchen Dick de Jonathan Meese is represented by Hagen v. Tronje’s Privatarmee “Scweinchen Dick Monokeltennonon Zuckerpuppe am de Monokeltennonon Zuckerpuppe am Madchen Kolibri”, 2004, (Lot 25), estimated at Madchen Kolibri”, 2004 $80,000-120,000. Meese’s painting depicts several disfigured and contorted forms held for an instant, in an emotional gaze with the viewer. The viewer cannot focus and therefore becomes part of the pandemonium, pulled into the painting, eyes flinting from side to side. The disorder and deep suffering are calmed by a sense of surrender and humility, in which the ancient mythic creature Hagen becomes a truly humble hero.
Additional significant works that will be for sale under the hammer include: Schattendusche, 2004, (Lot 17), by Martin Eder estimated between $80,000-120,000 and Stripped Eye Lamp, 2005, (Lot 18), by Olafur Eliasson estimated at $70,000- 90,000. These works will be sold alongside artworks made by key contemporary artists such as Karen Kilmnik, Mike Kelley, Liam Gillick, Richard Pettibone, Martin Eder , Schattendusche, 2004 and Ryan Mcginness. This press release is available on the press page of our website: Further information is available upon request. Please contact the communications department below for further details or images.
UPCOMING SALE DATES INCLUDE:
The Estate of Mrs. Harry N. Abrams Auction (NY): April 7, 2010
Photographs (NY): April 16, 2010
Jewels (NY): April 21, 2010
Design (London): April 28, 2010
Contemporary Art (NY): May 13 & 14 2010
THEME SALES:
NOW (NY): March 6, 2010 12 PM
SEX (London): March 19, 2010 5 PM
BRIC (Saatchi Gallery): April 23, 24 & 25, 2010
FILM (NY): April 29, 2010
AFRICA (NY): May 15, 1020
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Press Contacts:
Fiona McGovern Communications Assistant to Thierry Nataf – Senior Vice President [email protected] + 44 20 7318 4010
Sarah Baptiste Assistant to Thierry Nataf – Senior Vice President [email protected] +44 20 7318 4010