Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens Private Collection Christie's, London, February 14, 2014, lot 134 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Catalogue Essay
Christopher Wool’s defining use of the screenprint may be second only to that of Andy Warhol as the singular characteristic of his highly original and provocative practice. Exemplified by both his early stenciled text works and later works that employ screens of prior paintings, the screenprint emerged as both the means and the end to Wool’s investigation of painting. Addition and erasure, mark-making, blurring and wiping, building up and breaking down all represent the formal qualities associated with painting and each of which is further embodied and immortalized in the process of screenprinting.
Untitled from 2006 is a stunning work on paper that Wool made by arranging multiple screens from prior works into a new and unique composition. The originals are obscured and also simplified into a new synthesis in this complex process of self-appropriation and repetition. As Francisco Camps Ortiz astutely notes, the massive influx of written, spoken and visual media has become so overwhelming that the individual has difficulty deciphering one message from another. Wool’s works, such as the present lot, achieve a similar obfuscating effect, “with his reproductions containing erased or semi-erased messages[…] acquiring a different, more symbolic, more subjective power. From this artistic gesture we gather that nowadays there are certain deficiencies in information processes which make communication impossible, because the verbal language used in the medias is no longer sufficient to provide a clear understanding of reality.” (Francisco Camps Ortiz, “Meanings,” in Christopher Wool exh. cat., Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, 2006, p. 196)
