Rob Pruitt - Contemporary Art Day Sale New York Friday, November 16, 2012 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York
    Private collection, New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    In the present lot, Sleepy and Content, 2004, two pandas, Rob Pruitt’s most iconic subject, laze in an abundant and ambrosial jungle. Lying on their backs, with their full bellies extended, the two rest after a heavenly feast. Their signature black and white coats are rendered here in brilliant black glitter against an exposed and untreated canvas. The diptych is composed as such to mirror each other in a perfect refection, the glitter painstakingly applied to match the other half. The dazzling and twinkling surface distracts from the reality of the subjects’ fate: “The paintings’ clichéd imagery neutralizes their real endangered status making us less culpable in the creatures’ pending extinction. And therein lies the beauty of the clichéd image.” (M. Grabner, “Rob Pruitt”, Frieze Magazine, Issue 160, June-August, 2001).

110

Sleepy and Content

2004
diptych, enamel paint and glitter on canvas
each: 24 x 18 in. (61 x 45.7 cm)

overall: 24 x 36 in. (61 x 91.4 cm)

Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000 

Sold for $134,500

Contemporary Art Day Sale

16 November 2012
New York