Adam McEwen - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Tuesday, October 15, 2013 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Nicole Klagsburn, New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    “ Everything I choose is some kind of object that is generally rooted and thread into our daily life …You take something very familiar that we all know and make it yours. It makes you feel alive.” - Adam McEwen


    Basement Doors, 2010, is a compelling work by Adam McEwen, a British neo-conceptual artist who has been based in New York for over a decade. Formerly an obituary writer for the daily Telegraph, McEwen’s work has been exhibited in a series of prominent museums, institutions and galleries worldwide, including the Guggenheim museum, the Brant Foundation Art Study centre and the 2006 Whitney Biennial. Transcending the boundaries of sculpture and painting, the artist has merged the two mediums together with the present lot, producing an outcome that cannot be clearly defined by either one or the other.


    A stand-out piece from McEwen’s graphite series, Basement Doors is composed of large machined graphite fixed on aluminium panels. It is a testament to McEwen’s ongoing fascination of inverting the viewer’s perception by re-appropriating familiar objects, which have included ATM machines, out-dated Nokia phones, air conditioners,credit cards and other items relating to mass culture and consumerism, in an unconventional context that adopt a whole new meaning for the viewer. The use of machined graphite is key in conveying the feeling of abundant weight and density, while the silvery highlights reflect the light and generate the viewers’ tactile feelings and attention to the physical surface of the material used. By giving a completely different purpose to an object which is conventionally used as a portal leading to somewhere else, the artist challenges the viewer to stop and reconsider its forms, creating a vague juxtaposition of object and representation. As a colour that is representative of a luminal state, grey is essential in expressing a neutral objectivity and enables the artist to explore the viewer’s unlimited creative potential of their imagination, without setting boundaries or borders as to what the object may be representative of.

2

Basement Doors

2010
machined graphite on aluminum panel (in 2 parts)
overall 109.2 x 97.2 cm. (43 x 38 1/4 in.)
Signed and dated 'A. McEwen 2010' on the reverse of left panel.

Estimate
£70,000 - 100,000 ‡♠

Sold for £88,900

Contact Specialist
Peter Sumner
Head of Contemporary Art, London
psumner@phillips.com
+44 207 318 4063

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London 16 October 2013