Jim Hodges - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Wednesday, October 2, 2019 | Phillips

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  • Video

    Jim Hodges, 'another together', Lot 17

    20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 2 October 2019

  • Provenance

    Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Exhibited

    London, Stephen Friedman Gallery, Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, 12 June - 31 July 2015, p. 62 (illustrated, pp. 1 and 63, detail illustrated, pp. 64-65)

  • Catalogue Essay

    ‘I knew that objects could transmit the reality of humanness that we experience in our bodies. But I wanted to feel inflated and liberated instead of feeling compressed. That’s when I turned to exploring ideas of expansion, which eventually resulted in my use of architectural space as the material itself.’ - Jim Hodges

    Drawing from an abundant tradition of Minimalist and Conceptual artists who explored the effects of materials, light and reflection, Jim Hodges has dedicated his artistic career to transforming spaces and environments through sensory experiences. Executed in 2015, shortly after his critically acclaimed 2014 retrospective jointly organised by the Dallas Museum of Art and Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center, another together encapsulates multiple aspects of Hodges’s affective body of sculpture, effectively conjuring a spectacular viewing experience. ‘Enticement and trapping, reflection and adornment, community and isolation: all of these are elements in Hodges’ emotional alchemy’, writes Nayland Blake. ‘Hodges dramatizes the poignant moments in which our hopes and desires lead us to the ambiguous embrace of the tenderest traps’ (Nayland Blake, 1991, 1992: Jim Hodges, New York, 2007, p. 33). Rather than allowing the viewer the gratification of their own reflection in the present work, Hodges has broken the mirror and constructed a bursting star radiating intricate mosaics.

    Born in Spokane, Washington, in 1957, Hodges came of age in New York City in the mid-1980s. Critically, his early work emerged out of a complex cultural landscape where many artists took to activism as a response to identity politics, political repression and the AIDS crisis. A close friend of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, both artists proposed a more poetic mode of expression that could be both beautiful and political, eluding didacticism. Hodges and Gonzalez-Torres engaged with simple everyday materials such as glass, mirrors and lightbulbs to confront ideas of love and loss. Clearly reminiscent of this shift to a conceptual approach to art-making, another together symbolises Hodges’s unfaltering commitment to a poetic sensibility defined by human experience and materiality.

    Responding to the complex history of Minimalism, Hodges here manipulates his materials to play with the notion of reality and perception. Anchoring any room within which it is placed, the reflective surface captures the light and refracts its surroundings, choreographing the space to allure the viewer closer to its corner. In this way, Hodges participates in the long history of artists engaging with the mirror as a device for representing and defying the notion of reality. Hodges has spoken powerfully of his works as reminders to study one’s own identity, stating ‘I have been through a process of shedding skins, breaking through boundaries – imposed, self-imposed, learned, whatever – and the funny thing is, there’s always another wall that I go crashing into, another layer of crap to shed, another blossom that reveals more complexity and challenges. Thankfully this process doesn’t stop’ (Jim Hodges, quoted in Olga Viso, ‘Choreographing Experiences in Space: Olga Viso Interviews Jim Hodges’, Walker Magazine, 14 February 2014, online). A flattened disco ball exploding from within, another together is both a loud celebration of optimistic light and a modest act of transmutation which asks the viewer to reflect deeply into the corners of the self.

Ο◆17

another together

signed, titled and dated 'Jim Hodges another together 2015' on the reverse of the right panel
mirror on panel, in 2 parts
left panel 227 x 88 cm (89 3/8 x 34 5/8 in.)
right panel 215 x 118 cm (84 5/8 x 46 1/2 in.)
overall 252 x 206 x 4.6 cm (99 1/4 x 81 1/8 x 1 3/4 in.)

Executed in 2015.

Estimate
£400,000 - 600,000 

Sold for £375,000

Contact Specialist

Olivia Thornton
Senior Director
Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Europe
+44 20 7318 4099
othornton@phillips.com

 

Rosanna Widén
Director, Senior Specialist
+44 20 7318 4060
rwiden@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London Auction 2 October 2019