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"Her body is a feast, we consume it, we use it for everything, and her body is a famine because it contains no markers of its own self-defined meaning."
—Emily Mae Smith
Salvador Dalí, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening, 1944. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Image: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza / Scala / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkPresenting two majestic cheetahs guarding a surreal desert landscape of nude female bodies, Emily Mae Smith’s singular Feast and Famine has become an iconic image within the artist’s acclaimed oeuvre since its creation. Here, the mirrored words “FEAST” and “FAMINE” dominate the upper half of the composition, showcasing Smith’s usage of textual quips as a compositional device that are at once terse and loaded with meaning. Testifying to its formidable stature, Feast and Famine featured in the artist’s major solo exhibition at Le Consortium Museum in Dijon from 2018 to 2019, and was positioned as the centerpiece of her titular show at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah from 2020 to 2021.
"The image of the desert and the image of the body is perfect because the image of the reclining nude female body is so present everywhere in art. So there’s the feast, right? But the famine is that is has nothing to do with that woman herself. She’s just a kind of literal landscape on which the society or the culture is ascribing values."
—Emily Mae Smith
[left] Edgar Degas, Steep Coast, circa 1892. Private Collection [right] René Magritte, La Magie Noir (Black Magic), 1945. Musee d'Art Moderne, Brussels, Image: Banque d'Images, ADAGP / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkDrawing inspiration from Ingres to Magritte, Art Nouveau to Pop Art, Smith’s works excavate the deeply rooted patriarchal iconographies of the Western canon, transforming them into ingenious metaphors that comment on the history of gender and sexuality in visual culture. The artist explained of the present work, “I liked the idea of these sort of lush erotic figures representing a desert because I thought there was a very strange twist there, and thinking about the kind of history of feminine agency in art and painting and in representation. Women’s bodies are consistently used as vehicles for the meaning of others but never for their own meanings or own subjectivities. So that to me is a kind of literal desert, an empty place or a place that’s sort of waiting for a fertile event or maybe once was fertile and has been depleted or overmined. So, this dichotomy between this feminine figure and the desert is then linguistically encapsulated by the phrase ‘Feast and Famine.’”i
"Context is like a frame, and I want to render frames visible, acknowledging limitations, point of view, and correcting the assumed frames of the past."
—Emily Mae SmithThe cheetahs in Feast and Famine present an extraordinary example of the artist’s signature framing motif—a visual and conceptual device inspired by Art Nouveau commonly seen in her oeuvre in the form of glasses, curtains, or gaping mouths. “I’m fascinated by the way artists and designers of that time use the concept of a frame or drawn some sort of framing device to contextualize what’s inside the painting or the image,” she elucidated. “I got the idea for these cat-like creatures from an Art Nouveau design that incorporated some feline figures. I like how they were sort of sphinx-like in some way, like these guardians but also sort of terrifying and mysterious.”ii Flanking the composition in the foreground, these figures safeguard the gateway to the landscape of the female body, subverting the unimpeded male gaze upon the female nude as seen throughout art history.
Fernand Khnopff, Caress of the Sphinx, 1896. Musée d’art Moderne, Brussels,
Image: © Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium/HIP/Art Resource, NYIn contrast to the realistic rendering of the supple female bodies, Smith’s overtly stylized depiction of the feline creatures makes them appear almost human, their elongated whiskers evoking a male mustache. Displayed alongside the artist’s “mustache paintings” in her show at Le Consortium (see below), the present work embodies the humorous element with which she imbues her work. At the same time, it degenderizes the trope of the sphinx—a favorite metaphor for Art Nouveau and Symbolist artists to personify the femme fatale—recalling the androgyny of Smith’s well-known broom characters. Revealing a strikingly original vision of the artist’s practice, Feast and Famine is a fresh manifestation of Smith’s words on her recurring motifs: “These are all things with slippery signification. They mean things like labor, gender, power, control, mortality, transcendence, etc. They are forms doing the pictorial work of the intellect.”iii
In the Artist’s Words
i Emily Mae Smith, quoted in “‘Feast and Famine’ with Emily Mae Smith and SCAD MOA’s Ben Tollefson,” SCAD Museum of Art, December 16, 2020, IGTV.
ii Ibid.
iii Emily Mae Smith, quoted in Layla Leiman, “Slippery Signification: In Conversation with Emily Mae Smith,” ArtMaze Magazine, October 11, 2019.Provenance
Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2018Exhibited
Berlin, Contemporary Fine Arts, Emily Mae Smith: Feast of Totems, June 9 – July 14, 2018
Dijon, Le Consortium Museum, Emily Mae Smith, November 24, 2018 – April 14, 2019
Savannah, SCAD Museum of Art, Emily Mae Smith: Feast and Famine, August 20, 2020 – January 1, 2021Literature
Sasha Bogojev, “Looking Back on Emily Mae Smith's "Feast and Famine" @ SCAD Museum of Art,” Juxtapoz, January 6, 2021, online (illustrated)
28
Feast and Famine
signed and dated "Emily Mae Smith 2018" on the reverse
oil on linen
54 x 46 in. (137.2 x 116.8 cm)
Painted in 2018.
Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $1,361,000
Amanda Lo Iacono
New York Head of Department & Head of Auctions
+1 212 940 1278
aloiacono@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 17 November 2021
1
Shara Hughes
Inside Outside
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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2
Jadé Fadojutimi
My Umbrella Has A Nourishing Disguise
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $877,000
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3
Ewa Juszkiewicz
Girl in Blue
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $730,800
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4
Kwesi Botchway
Green Sofa
Estimate $30,000 - 50,000
Sold for $214,200
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5
Titus Kaphar
Fade With Time
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $816,500
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6
David Hammons
Puzzling Times
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $877,000
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7
Raymond Pettibon
No Title (Let him come...)
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $3,418,000
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8
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $11,870,000
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9
Georgia O'Keeffe
Crab’s Claw Ginger Hawaii
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $7,748,000
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10
Alexander Calder
White Moon
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,628,000
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11
Cecily Brown
Untitled
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $6,140,500
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12
Willem de Kooning
Composition
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
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13
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,692,000
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14
This lot is no longer available.
15
Amy Sherald
Welfare Queen
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $3,902,000
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16
Francis Bacon
'Pope with Owls'
Estimate $35,000,000 - 45,000,000
Sold for $33,000,000
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17
Luc Tuymans
Wallpaper
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,250,000
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18
Pierre Bonnard
Panier de fruit
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $4,991,000
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19
Honor Titus
Linden Blvd Jazz Radio
Estimate $30,000 - 50,000
Sold for $163,800
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20
Matthew Wong
Time After Time
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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21
Avery Singer
European Ego Ideal
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $4,023,000
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22
Mark Tansey
Garden
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $2,934,000
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23
KAWS
THE WAY HE KNOWS
Estimate $850,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $1,542,500
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24
Wassily Kandinsky
Fliessend
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
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25
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (from Famous Negro Athlete Series)
Estimate $750,000 - 1,100,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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26
Peter Saul
Ice Box #3
Estimate $350,000 - 450,000
Sold for $441,000
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27
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (The Door)
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $8,549,500
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28
Emily Mae Smith
Feast and Famine
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $1,361,000
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29
Gerhard Richter
Weiß (White)
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $5,717,000
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30
Robert Ryman
Series #25 (White)
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,421,500
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31
Frank Stella
Double Concentric Square
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $1,845,000
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32
Carmen Herrera
Amarillo y Negro
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $630,000
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33
Andy Warhol
The Last Supper/Be a Somebody with a Body
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $6,806,000
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34
Christopher Wool
Blue Fool
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,179,500
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35
This lot is no longer available.
36
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Six PM, Malaga
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $567,000
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37
Mickalene Thomas
Portrait of Qusuquzah #5
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $504,000
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38
Mike Kelley
Memory Ware Flat #3
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,179,500
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39
George Condo
Collision Course
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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40
Bruce Nauman
Untitled (from Fifteen Pairs of Hands)
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $983,000
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41
David Hammons
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $3,660,000
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42
Nicolas Party
Houses
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $1,724,000
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43
Hurvin Anderson
Country Club—Mixed Doubles
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $604,800
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44
Max Ernst
Ohne Titel (les hommes ne le sauront jamais)
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $504,000
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45
Max Ernst
Kachina, le chien de Peggy Guggenheim
Estimate $280,000 - 350,000
Sold for $277,200
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46
Cy Twombly
Untitled
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $786,250
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47
Reggie Burrows Hodges
On the Verge: Green
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $567,000
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48
Max Ernst
Portrait de Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $176,400
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