Gary Hume - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, November 13, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    White Cube, London

  • Exhibited


    London,White Cube, Gary Hume: Cave Paintings, May 26 – July 1, 2006

  • Catalogue Essay


    British artist Gary Hume came to his prominence in the late 1980s through his body of high gloss paintings composed of abstracted figures and flat color planes on aluminium. Our current lot, Into the Dangerous World…, belongs to a recent body of work, in which the fluid glossy paint is replaced with a highly polished marble, that continues to show Hume’s fantastic ability to control his medium. The marble creates Hume’s signature flat graphic color planes causing the figure to seem to exist within a high gloss void.
    Into the Dangerous World…, belongs to Hume’s Cave Paintings series, in which the medium becomes integral to the reading of the work. The figure of young child and its guardian have a classical appearance and sensibility reminding the audience of the work from a romantic period of Madonna and child. The title causes the reading of fear and the unknown, confirmed by the child’s facial expression as he is being ushered forth by his caretaker. Hume manages with this work to make references on a multitude of levels, the Baroque and the ancient, at the same time referencing his earlier works, making the series both old and new at the same time. This work is an important example of Hume’s ability to employ a formal decadence yet remain relevant and poignant.

 

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Into the Dangerous World...

2006
Marble and lead.
96 3/4 x 95 1/2 in. (245.7 x 242.6 cm).

Estimate
$300,000 - 400,000 

Contemporary Art Part I

13 Nov 2008, 7pm
New York