Jacob Kassay - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Sunday, June 26, 2011 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels

  • Catalogue Essay

    Untitled, from 2009, by Jacob Kassay has been made by combining two established artistic methods, painting and silver gelatin printing, in one alchemic manner to create an entirely new form. Rather than working with new mediums, Kassay instead blends these two techniques to create a monochromatic surface which resonates strongly with concepts most notably associated with Robert Morris’s situation series. The occurrence of oxidization at the edges of the picture’s surface occurs when the treated canvases are plated. Uncovered areas become chemically burned. At this moment the artist’s hand is removed and an element of chance enters the artistic creation. Each canvas becomes oxidized, burnished at the edges and ultimately unique. The dark oxidization in each canvas contrasts with the reflective plated silver. Reflections, shadows and light are cropped and obscured rendering the returned image further even further abstracted. In both instances the viewer and the surrounding environment are participants in the composition and so complete the composition. The opaque yet reflective surface created by Kassay dictates that every time the work is viewed the composition changes. In Kassay’s work the reflection is blurred and more introspective, rather than an awareness of presence in Morris’s work. The visible brushstrokes beneath the silver plating blur the surface creating soft reflections of the painting’s surrounding environment.

2

Untitled

2009
Acrylic, silver deposit and string on canvas.
122 × 91.5 cm (48 × 36 in).
Signed and dated ‘Kassay 09’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£50,000 - 70,000 

Sold for £145,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

27 June
London