Dmitry Plavinsky - Important Contemporary Russian Art–Property from a Foundation London Wednesday, February 27, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Livet Reichard Company, Inc., New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    Natural objects, preferably of pre¬historic origins that have preserved only their basic construction, their structure – are Plavinsky's favourite models; he spends decades painting them in dull yellowish brown and dark blue paint.
    This legendary Moscow non¬conformist, a participant in the first underground exhibits of the end of the 1950s, is traditionally considered to be a conceptualist, although Plavinsky himself defined his style as ‘structural symbolism.' Submerging himself into the past, the artist extracts from it treasures of unbelievable beauty: a fish scale, remnants of a prehistoric fish, fantastic plants that have vanished from the face of the earth, insects, sometimes abandoned churches, seascapes, skyscrapers – everything that is complex, interestingly constructed and capable of being deconstructed. "For me the most interesting thing is not the flourishing of this or that civilization, but its ruin and the moment of conception of the next." (D. Plavinsky)
    Faina Balakhovskaya

38

Cosmic Leaf

1987
Oil on canvas.
141.4 x 86.5 cm. (55 5/8 x 34 in).
Signed with monogram upper right and signed, titled and dated ‘PLAVINSKY COSMIC LEAF­87 [in Cyrillic]’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£10,000 - 15,000 ‡♠

Sold for £78,500

Important Contemporary Russian Art–Property from a Foundation

28 Feb 2008, 6pm
London