Avant Garden 2016 (Photo: Courtney Perry, ©Walker Art Center)
For the sixth consecutive year, Phillips is pleased to support the Walker Art Center's Avant Garden benefit auction. This year's crowning event caps a summer-long celebration of the museum's expanded campus and transformed Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, which we toured this summer with Olga Viso, the Executive Director of the Walker Art Center, and Victoria Sung. The reimagined sculpture garden features newly commissioned works by Mark Manders, Theaster Gates, Liz Larner and many more, and the renovations honor both the museum and garden's legacy within the Minneapolis metropolis.
As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting and engaging the world's preeminent museums and cultural institutions, we look at a selection of works on offer during this weekend's benefit auction. Proceeds from Avant Garden support the Walker Art Center's ongoing artistic and educational programming. Read on below and click here to find out how you can participate on 9 September.
Los Carpinteros Sala de Lectura anillo, vista superior, 2016. Watercolor on paper. Estimate $16,500. Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. The artist collective Los Carpinteros (the Carpenters) was formed in 1994 by Marco Castillo, Dagoberto Rodriguez and Alexandre Arrechea. A staging of the group's performance piece Conga Irreversible at the 2012 Havana Biennial captured international acclaim and is featured in an upcoming exhibition co-curated by Walker executive director Olga Viso later this fall. Works by this artist collective, based in Havana and Madrid, can be found in the permanent collection of museums including MoMA New York, LACMA, the Guggenheim and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Catherine Opie Untitled #4, 2012. Pigment print, edition 4 of 5. Estimate $40,000. Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Catherine Opie is a celebrated photographer whose works have featured in the collections of Tate London, LACMA, MoMA New York, the Whitney and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston since the early 1990s. She was an artist-in-residence at the Walker in 2001-2002, and subsequently, she received a solo exhibition in 2002. Opie continues to live and work in Los Angeles.
Alejandro Campins Ayuno, 2017. Oil on canvas. Estimate $7,000. Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly, New York. Campins is a painter with a classical seriousness to his art, producing evocative and enigmatic works occupying space between fantasy and reality. Born in Manzanillo, Cuba, he continues to work in Havana and draws on the collective memory of his home country to create a space for meditation and thought with his atmospheric paintings. Campins' first solo show in the United States came at Sean Kelly Gallery, who also presents this work for the 2017 edition of Avant Garden in conjunction with the artist.
Alec Soth Lake Calhoun, 2014. Archival pigment print. Estimate $17,000. Courtesy Aedie McEvoy. Born in Minneapolis, the home of the Walker Art Center, Alec Soth is considered one of today's most compelling voices in photography. His curiosity and penchant for research are among the hallmarks of his artistic process. Soth continues a tradition of road photography established by such luminary figures and auction stalwarts as Walker Evans, Robert Frank and William Eggleston. Already in his career, Soth has published more than 25 books including Sleeping by the Mississippi, NIAGARA and Broken Manual.