Christopher Wool - Contemporary Art Day Sale New York Friday, May 16, 2014 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica

  • Catalogue Essay

    Influenced by the New York Pop art scene of his youth, Christopher Wool’s exploration of painting landed in the mid-1980’s with his Pollock infused drip paintings and beautifully rendered decorative patterns. As seen in the present lot, Untitled (T8), Wool utilizes rubber rollers to execute stunning floral patterns onto a clean white palette. Reminiscent of wallpaper, the winding black vines sprawl out over the canvas and the repetitive pattern has no end and no beginning. Wool’s paintings embrace the intersection of decoration and design as a means to confront factory motifs and the boundaries of painting.

    The painting’s reliance on pattern also allows the viewer to find irregularities as an entry point to the work: “The repetitive patterns of these works are articulated by layering, skips in register, drips and scumbles… The imperfections imbue these works with fragility, as the seemingly empty decorative patterns are rendered imperfect, and thus vulnerable” (Ann Goldstein, ‘What They’re Not: The Paintings of Christopher Wool’, in Christopher Wool, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1998). Wool’s departure from the perfection of décor and the regularity of machinery allow Untitled (T8) to resist such easy categorization.

158

Untitled (T8)

1987
alkyd, flashe on aluminum laid on board
12 x 12 in. (30.5 x 30.5 cm.)

Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000 

Sold for $173,000

Contact Specialist
Amanda Stoffel
Head of Day Sale
astoffel@phillips.com
+1 212 940 1261

Contemporary Art Day Sale

New York 16 May 2014 11am