Dan Colen - Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale New York Thursday, March 7, 2013 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Gagosian Gallery, New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    “There is an infinity in ‘real world objects’ that, no matter how much I try, I couldn’t paint or sculpt into being.”
    DAN COLEN

    Dan Colen’s highly inventive practices are as varied and heterogeneous as any artist in recent history. His investigations into the emotive qualities of art engage a prodigious spectrum of mixed media. He has ingeniously scrutinized the pliancy and expressive capabilities of chewing gum, created largescale reproductions of vandalized boulders, and creatively appropriated Disney imagery in punctilious and fluid paintings. The space in which subcultures collide, the conuence of the highfalutin with the fantastically philistine, and the degree to which the artist must intervene with the object to enhance its transformative capacity, are all themes that resonate with this talented and prolific young artist.

    Oy Vey 3, 2010, marks a decidedly more restrained and contemplative point in the artist’s career through a constellation of scintillating steel studs. One could be looking at a constellation of stars, or an aerial view of a game of war. It is the type of natural chaos and lack of organizational system that makes, what could be seen as a chaotic arrangement, so elegantly pristine. That being said,one could easily imagine the protagonist of Jim Hodges’ No-One Ever Leaves, 1992, engaging with Colen’s stud clad Oy Vey 3, 2010. Colen’s fascination with duality in the mechanisms of everyday objects is apparent here; in Oy Vey 3, 2010, he has elevated a simple stud to an object of true splendor. It is Colen’s ability to tap into the beauty and vitality of such prosaic objects that makes the present lot such a compelling and seductive work.

  • Artist Biography

    Dan Colen

    American • 1979

    American artist Dan Colen has spent most of his career asking himself questions about the editorial decisions artists have to make when creating a scene from scratch on canvas. In his early work, Colen painted mundane interiors punctuated with fantastical elements. This manifested as part of a growing curiosity in the ethereal or divine intervention.

    Colen subsequently stepped away from paint as material and started using found objects as mediums with which to paint. Among these, Colen has used chewing gum, street trash, confetti, feathers, flowers and dirt. This methodology allows Colen to abandon control and create in a more free-form, subconscious manner.

    View More Works

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN COLLECTION

2

Oy Vey 3

2010
steel studs on canvas
36 x 30 in. (91.4 x 76.2cm)
Signed, titled, and dated "Dan Colen 2010 'OY VEY (3)'" on the reverse.

Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000 

Sold for $164,500

Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale

7 March 2013
New York