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In A second nice break, 2017, a bright orange campfire in the foreground draws the viewer into Ben Sledsens’ midnight forest tableau. Two young men wearing baseball caps stand in the fire’s glow, looking at an unseen creature or scene beyond the edge of the canvas. Behind them, the dark forest stretches out, with each tree delineated in deep shades of turquoise, lavender, phthalo green and blue, and indigo. Sledsens’ use of both oil and acrylic paints further enriches the painted surface, which varies between a shining and matte finish. Elongated tree trunks draw the eye up to the star-strewn night sky, which itself reflects into the lake at the center of the composition, creating a cycle of observation akin to the sensation of looking out over a landscape in real life.
Lucas Cranach, Hunting near Hartenfels Castle, 1540. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Image: Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1958.425 For Sledsens, born and raised in Antwerp, Belgium, the combination of art history with a personal sense of artistry is the key to the accessible yet rigorously defined sense of place in his work. The depth of field and high horizon line of A second nice break reflects the influence of Northern Renaissance painting, particularly hunting scenes by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Lucas Cranach, among others. The fine articulation of individual trees and stars evokes the precision of the Northern Renaissance tradition, while the small foreground figures—perhaps avatars for the artist, who is often photographed wearing a baseball cap—scale the viewer into the scene, emphasizing the depth and natural abundance of the landscape.
Georg Baselitz, Landscape with Pathos, 1970. Saint Louis Art Museum. Artwork: © Georg Baselitz 2023 And yet, A second nice break has more contemporary referents as well. Sledsens’ bright, straight-from-the-tube colors give the work a modern, faux-naÏf quality, while the intentional vertical flattening of space recalls the work of artists like Henri Rousseau and Jean Brusselmans.i Sledsens explains that an exhibition of Georg Baselitz’s radically inverted canvases inspired him to think differently about painting, which led Sledsens to look to comics and cartoon art as a valid form of artistic inspiration.ii Thus, in A second nice break, the figures’ gestures towards a scene beyond the canvas suggest a sense of narrative, as if the work before is one panel in a larger story of interconnected canvases.
Indeed, Sledsens’ work holds a storybook quality; his purposeful pictorial simplicity, folkloric sense of whimsy, and bright color palette make A second nice break seem like an illustration of the artist’s own imagination. We step into Sledsens’ private world of campfires, trees, and shooting stars, a welcome break from the harshness of our reality, which grants us a vision of a sincere, hopeful utopia to come.
Collector’s Digest
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Sledsens’ recent solo exhibitions include Ben Sledsens, El Centro de Arte Contemporáneo (CAC), Málaga, 2022. His work is in several esteemed international collections, including those of the Hermitage, St. Petersburg; The Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), Antwerp; CAC, Málaga; and the Nassima Landau Art Foundation, Tel Aviv.
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The artist made his auction debut with Phillips in the New York 20th Century and Contemporary Art Day Sale in 2021.
i Ian Mundell, “Ben Sledsens Shapes Art History Into Personal Utopias,” Jan. 12, 2021, the low countries, online.
ii Ibid.
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Provenance
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
Private Collection
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
Los Angeles, Nino Mier Gallery, Ben Sledsens: Before the crow crows, October 14–November 25, 2017
Los Angeles, Nino Mier Gallery, Group Show: Some Trees, July 20–August 31, 2019
Property from an Important European Collection
45
A second nice break
signed with the artist's initials "B. S." lower left; signed and dated "BEN SLEDSENS 2017" on the reverse
oil and acrylic on canvas
85 5/8 x 66 7/8 in. (217.5 x 169.9 cm)
Painted in 2017.
Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000
Sold for $279,400
Carolyn Kolberg
Associate Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
+1 212 940 1206
CKolberg@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art, Evening Sale Part II
New York Auction 14 November 2023
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35
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36
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37
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38
Gerhard Richter
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39
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40
Georg Baselitz
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41
Pablo Picasso
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42
George Condo
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43
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44
Nicolas de Staël
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Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
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45
Ben Sledsens
A second nice break
Estimate $120,000 - 180,000
Sold for $279,400
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46
Jadé Fadojutimi
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47
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48
Damien Hirst
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49
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50
Keith Haring
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51
Jeff Koons
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52
Donald Judd
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53
Pablo Picasso
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54
Christina Quarles
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55
Lucio Fontana
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56
Emilio Vedova
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57
KAWS
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Jeff Koons
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59
Elizabeth Peyton
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60
Henry Taylor
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