Anna Maria Maiolino - Latin America New York Monday, May 23, 2016 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

  • Catalogue Essay

    The present lot, Untitled (2000-2005), by Italian born artist Anna Maria Maiolino belongs to an important series within her oeuvre entitled Uns & Outros. This series evinces an ongoing theme that continuously re-appears referencing gestural hand language, the process of molding and an interest in space not visible to the naked eye. Over the past five decades of her career, Maiolino has experimented with infinite mediums that reflect what Helena Tatay aptly describes as “a rhizomatic structure, where the works are like semiotic steps, loaded with gestures, perceptions, attitudes, interests…that create a web, so that the meanings, between one work and the other, reverberate and grow” (In Conversation with Anna Maria Mailino and Helena Tatay, online interview published by dOCUMENTA 13, p.7).

    Shortly after moving to Brazil in 1960, during the military regime, Maiolino’s career unfolded quite rapidly. She exhibited alongside some of the most established Brazilian artists of the time, such as Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, in the landmark exhibition, New Brazilian Objectivity (1967), which constituted a new vision of Brazilian art. But it was not until 1989 that she started working with clay, a traditional material for sculpture used across cultures since ancient times. Through this investigation she realized that the act of molding clay is an aesthetic exploration and a process that the material demands. Hence, she makes this procedure overtly visible. Another pivotal concept in this work is a “negotiation of dichotomies” such as inside-outside and-in the case of the present lot–one and the other, in which the other is the space not visible, yet integral to the piece. Ultimately, the sculpture conveys the artist’s state of transformation and her self-imposed aesthetic limits through the material. The conceptual complexity that Maiolino evokes in the present lot and the series it belongs to has placed her at the vanguard of contemporary art. It is no surprise to see her work held in the permanent collections of some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, such as at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

44

Untitled from the series 'Uns & Outros'

2000-2005
molded cement, in 4 parts
each: 11 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. (29.2 x 24.1 x 16.5 cm)
Signed "Anna Maria Maiolino 2000 - 2002" on the reverse.

Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000 

Sold for $56,250

Contact Specialist
Kaeli Deane
Head of Sale
New York
+1 212 940 1352

Latin America

New York Auction 23 May 2016