Sherrie Levine - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale London Thursday, March 9, 2017 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Exhibited

    New York, Paula Cooper Gallery, Sherrie Levine, March 29 – April 26, 2003

  • Catalogue Essay

    Flatness, monochrome and shipping materials are some of the primary visual notions that come to mind when exposed to Sherrie Levine’s Parchment Knot: 3, 2003. A closer look reveals the naturally formed knots on the surface of the wood filled with acrylic paint. This ready-made method elevates the ordinary and cheap plywood material into a meticulously crafted art object. Being commonly considered as imperfections, the knots on the surface of Parchment Knot: 3, 2003 represent Levine’s rejection of modernist aesthetic canons, and instead suggest an inherent sublime quality in the most banal objects. This Duchampian re-contextualization of the found object, questions simultaneously the originality and identity of the art object. Plywood, commonly used as crating material to protect artwork, refers to the direct relationship it has to the art world. Used as a canvas by Levine, it provides the viewer with a different perspective on the status of the material.

    Sherrie Levine started challenging concepts of appropriation in the early 1980s when she explicitly re-photographed works by famous photographers such as Edward Weston and Walker Evans. Her work addresses the limitations within modernist cannons and interrogates the notions of authenticity and representation.

167

Parchment Knot: 3

signed, dated and numbered 'Sherrie Levine 2003 3' on the reverse
acrylic on plywood, in artist's frame
250.2 x 128.6 cm (98 1/2 x 50 5/8 in.)
Executed in 2003.

Estimate
£120,000 - 180,000 

Sold for £197,000

Contact Specialist
Tamila Kerimova
Specialist, Head of Day Sale
+ 44 20 7318 4065

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Auction 10 March 2017