Josiah McElheny - Contemporary Art Day Sale New York Friday, November 16, 2012 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
    AC Project Room, New York
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Exhibited

    Seattle, Donald Young Gallery, Josiah McElheny: Three Alter Egos, December 14, 1996 - February 22, 1997
    Boston, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Story of Glass, January 22 - April 25, 1999

  • Literature

    R. Updike, "Looking Through The Glass At Art History And Authority", Seattle Times, 1996
    D. Hickey and J. R. Gross, Josiah McElheny, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 1999, pp. 28-29 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    THE FOLLOWING IS A COPY OF THE TEXT FROM THE WORK:

    The Development of Social Critique

    Jacopo Ligozzi, court draftsman to Cosimo II of the Medici, began in 1617 to make drawings for the production of glass at the Florence factory in the Pitti Palace. Ligozzi
    had these three wine glasses made by Muranese master Giacomo Della Luna to point out the lengths that aristocrats would go to to defne their own elegance. In this period it had become important to drink from glass as a part of an elite life of grace. Ligozzi consciously created these glasses both to ft into this lifestyle and to simultaneously critique it. It is virtually impossible to drink from these glasses without spilling wine on oneself. Through exaggeration, he used the object itself to insert his own concepts of rebellion and inquiry into the culture at large. This kind of object-based analysis of the social structure only returns with the art and design of the 20th century.

175

The Development of Social Critique (The Designs of Jacopo Ligozzi)

1996-1998
wood shelf, blown glass, drawing on paper, and text display
shelf: 14 1/4 x 24 x 10 in. (36.2 x 61 x 25.4 cm)

drawing: 21 x 17 3/4 in. (53.3 x 45.1 cm)

text panel: 6 x 12 in. (15.2 x 30.5 cm)

installed dimensions variable

Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000 

Contemporary Art Day Sale

16 November 2012
New York