EVENING SALE HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE WORKS BY ROBERT RYMAN, WADE GUYTON, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, MARK ROTHKO, AI WEI WEI, TAUBA AUERBACH AND WILLEM DE KOONING
EVENING AUCTION: 13 NOVEMBER 2014, 7PM
DAY AUCTION: 14 NOVEMBER 2014, 11AM
VIEWING: 1-13 NOVEMBER, 450 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10022
AUCTION LOCATION: 450 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK – 4 NOVEMBER 2014 – Phillips is pleased to announce highlights from the forthcoming Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, featuring 243 lots with a low estimate of $57.9m / £35.9m / €45.5m and a high estimate of $84.8m / £52.6m / €66.6m.
The Evening Sale will offer 48 lots with a low estimate of $46.1m / £28.6m / €36.2m and a high estimate of $68.2m/ £42.3m / €53.6m.
“We are delighted to present a strong group of works spanning from the early 1950s from Hans Hofmann to the present day with Fredrik Vaerslev and Danh Vo in our November sales of Contemporary Art.” DAVID GEORGIADES, WORLDWIDE CO-HEAD OF CONTEMPORARY ART, PHILLIPS.
Robert Ryman’s vast surfaces are an end in and of themselves, purposefully crafted to emphasize the minutiae of their construction against the luminous sources that complete them. The present lot is a quintessential adoption of Ryman’s most enduring and recognizable tropes—the square canvas, the texturally thick use of white, the impressively subtle integration of hints of color—that it qualifies as one of his most essential canvases of his late period. Texture is the most fascinating aspect of the present lot, and the one in which Ryman chooses to exhibit his most ingenious artistry. Indeed, what is so spectacular about Hour, 2001, is that it could have been painted during any era of Ryman’s career, so unified is his work from era to era. As Ryman’s most historically reliable format, the square canvas is not only a conventional and functional surface for his medium, but also a necessary vessel for communicating the intended neutrality of his pictures. Ryman directs the viewer upon the use of his painterly medium and in doing so he establishes paint itself as the main feature of his work.
A masterwork from Willem de Kooning's final decade of production, Untitled XVIII, 1984, emerges as the signature example of the artist's works. Trying to capture the indeterminate, fluid state between figuration and abstraction, his work evokes the deconstructed female figure with more grace than previously observed within the artist's oeuvre. While de Kooning is most commonly grouped with the Abstract Expressionists, he admits that was influenced by earlier artistic movements. In the present lot, cubist figure distortion mixes with the linear abstract tendencies of his New York School cohort Franz Kline and Mondrian’s neo-plasticism. Here, he abandons the lushness of fauvist color saturation in favor of painterly freedom in movement. Oscillating between delicacy and boldness, Untitled XVIII is formed of countless shapes of linear inventions. In the pure reductive forms of these works he developed a resolute assuredness and reveals the fundamental simplicity of his art.
Wade Guyton’s inkjet on linen mechanisms display a unique vulnerability to the printing errors from which they are derived. Every snag and hitch is encouraged, recorded, and ultimately re-worked to meet the needs of the artist’s process. Guyton's Untitled, 2006 is bold and alluring. This work is a mesmerizing example of the fire paintings that signaled an important turning point in the artist's radical engagement with computer printing technology. His practice represents one of the twenty-first century's most searing enquiries into the relationship between art and technology.The flame motif that defines the fire paintings stems from the artist’s earlier paper printing phase, and was originally torn from an old book cover. Guyton’s revival of this image stems from his desire to inject an element of pictorial content back into his increasingly abstract practice. Combined with the hazy drippings and blurred effects of his new printing method, the resulting paintings brought the flames to life in ways unimagined by the artist. Untitled, 2006, is an impressive monument to the minimal and the conceptual – and an undeniably elegant manifestation of art historical tradition and contemporary innovation.In the unforeseen potential of the printer to reinvent one of the most time-honored artistic media—namely, painting—Guyton's works have come to occupy an important position within the artistic canon that daunted him in his early years.
For the first decades of their existence, most of Mark Rothko’s works on paper were erroneously deemed secondary to his larger canvas paintings—mostly as a result of the bias against their scale. Yet, as a medium of dependability throughout Rothko’s career, paper clearly held artistic properties lacking in canvas that appealed to Rothko. The present lot was instrumental in legitimizing the long-sought equality of Rothko’s paper works. Paper lent itself magnificently to the developing style of the young Rothko; he used paper not only for its limited scope, but also for its greater capacity for stylistic nuance. Untitled, 1959 is a devastating portrait of Rothko’s multiform paintings; his chosen expression of the essence of human drama. Rothko tackled the subject of essential portraiture—painting the likeness of the soul itself. Rothko’s deep and light orange as well as pink shapes are the star inhabitants of the surface, almost betraying a living relationship in their complex proximity. Rothko incorporates and juxtaposes the blissful colors of a sunset—though they are placed contrary to what an earthly horizon might suggest. In their intimate experience, Rothko’s works on paper supplant the theory that a great artist can only possess a single mode of expression. In place of this, he posits a more accurate notion: that the genius of a single creator can conjure a multitude of masterworks, each representative of the brilliant mind from whence they came. Untitled, 1959 is one such painting—a singularly perfect multiform.
In the mid-twentieth century, Frank Stella pioneered a reductive approach that would later define a generation of Minimalism and Post-Painterly Abstraction. In its purity of form, Concentric Square, from 1966 epitomizes the aesthetics of this groundbreaking vision. In turning away from the subjectivity of Abstract Expressionism and the mysticism of Color Field Painting, Stella’s oeuvre marks a crucial moment in the trajectory of contemporary representation. In Concentric Square, Stella’s radical new composition is executed with startling precision. Devoid of external meaning or symbolism, the painting presents a formal arrangement of concentric squares. Stella’s methodology is exacting: each geometrical ring is painted in flat, unmixed and saturated color. The lines are hard-edged to the point of completely negating any trace of the artist’s paintbrush. Synthetically pure colors – crimson red, blazing orange, saffron yellow, lime green, indigo blue and deep purple – define each strip. However, when the tones are perceived in unison by the viewer’s eye they begin to mix and intermingle optically. The relative relationship between one tone and the next makes this work a fascinating study of comparative color. Composition is Stella’s chief concern; and Concentric Square demonstrates his penchant for rationality and his commitment to absolute symmetry. In this work, Stella takes Modernism to its logical extreme, presenting painting as an object stripped of exterior referent.
PHILLIPS:
As the only international auction house to concentrate exclusively on contemporary culture, Phillips has established a commanding position in the sale of Contemporary Art, Design, Photographs, Editions and Jewellery. Through the passionate dedication of its team of global specialists, the company has garnered an unparalleled wealth of knowledge of emerging market trends. Founded in London in 1796, Phillips conducts auctions in New York and London and has representative offices throughout Europe and in the United States. For more information, please visit: phillips.com.
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Alex Godwin-Brown
Head of Press and Events, Europe
agodwin-brown@phillips.com
+ 44 20 7318 4036
HEADQUARTERS
450 Park Avenue
New York NY 10022
+1 212 940 1200
30 Berkeley Square
London W1J 6EX
+44 20 7318 4010
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