David Salle - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, November 13, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    Lehmann Maupin, New York

  • Exhibited


    New York, Lehmann Maupin, David Salle: Glass and Mirror Paintings, January 23 – March 6, 1999

  • Literature


    M. Nesbit, David Salle: Glass and Mirror Paintings, New York, 1999, p. 17 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    “There is art that reflects the singular self, and there is art that reveals a nonsingular, fragmented self. Obviously I am an example of the latter.” (From Fredrick Tuten’s interview, “David Salle at the Edges,” Art in America (September 1997)
    David Salle’s stylization, a la Rauschenberg sans the contextual political language, delves into a deep transitive pictorial language where each seemingly unrelated image holds a unique relation to each other, held tandem by an unknown degree of separation bred and born in the artist’s minds eye.The present lot, an intricate composition of canvas and linen panels, continues an exploration of reflection, disjunction and fragmentation through a mysterious and suggestive juxtaposition of narrative elements. But as the artist states, “Every painting, consciously or not, contains instructions on where to look for a way in, for what it's about. This is contained in the painting itself, but you have to know where to look.” (From FredrickTuten’s interview, “David Salle at the Edges,” Art in America (September 1997)
    The deeper you look, the more puzzling the painting becomes.The title of the work, Rips in the Mirror eludes to Michael Rips, writer/lawyer friend of Salle who has been described as “a classic social lubricator… He connects everyone to everyone else.” (E. Hayt, A NIGHT OUT WITH – Michael Rips; AboutThatYear in Italy, NewYorkTimes, June 3, 2001) If Mr. Rips can be described as a social lubricator the same can be extended to David Salle as being a metaphysical lubricator.
    His paintings challenge the viewer to abandon all preconceived notions of context. It is in the mix of images themselves that he challenges the viewer to look beyond the preconceived ideas of translation and understanding. In many ways his paintings adopt the Hindu philosophy of maya – the illusion of reality. His amalgamation of images breaches the reality of what we see and entwine it with not just the fragmentation of the self and everyday life but of contextual understanding.

28

Rips in the Mirror

1998

Oil and acrylic on canvas and linen.

72 x 144 1/4 in. (182.9 x 366.4 cm).

Signed, titled, and dated “David Salle ‘Rips in the Mirror’ 1998” on the reverse.

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Contemporary Art Part I

13 Nov 2008, 7pm
New York