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“I’ve always had this strange idea of pointiness as something both delicate and strong—like, I’ve taken the form to a point, and it’s done. It’s closed off; it’s contained. It has rigorous speed and can move around and cut things.”
—Julien NguyenA grey-blue figure whirls up from the center of Julien Nguyen’s Jeu de Paume, 2015, like a haunted Cubist cyclone. All angles, with a splash of blonde hair, a red tongue, and a white, triangular pelvis reminiscent of a Speedo swimsuit, the central figure flashes its pink, unseeing eye towards the right-facing profile at the top left corner. The face in profile would be confined to its carefully delineated black box, if not for its eye, uncannily pushed backwards from below the brow, which looks directly at the central figure, linking the two disparate elements.
The painting takes its name from the Jeu de Paume, a contemporary art museum in Paris located in a Napoleonic tennis court where jeu de paume (real tennis) was once played (the yellow orb at center left, perhaps, pointing to these sporty origins). The tension between the static and dynamic, historical and contemporary in Jeu de Paume lies at the center of Nguyen’s practice.
The Jeu de Paume Museum, Paris. Nguyen’s geometric, ethereal aesthetic is inspired as much by European medieval and Renaissance art as it is by turn-of-the-21st century videogame graphics. His use of deep, planar perspective and a pool of ultramarine blue in Jeu de Paume cites medieval masterworks such as Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel, c. 1305, Padua, Italy, and the Northern Renaissance Merode Altarpiece from the workshop of Robert Campin, c. 1427-1432, The Met Cloisters, New York.
The composition of Jeu de Paume, with discrete blocks of color and the face in profile at top left, cloistered in its black box, recalls the page layout of Renaissance books of hours, wherein the border decorations, which can include profile portraits like that in Jeu de Paume, supplement the message of the central devotional illustration. Similarly, the presence of the face at top left creates an essential tension with the central figure of Jeu de Paume; the composition would be incomplete without it.
[Left] Workshop of Robert Campin, The Merode Altarpiece, c. 1427-1432, central panel. The Met Cloisters, New York. Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Cloisters Collection, 1956, 56.70a-c
[Right] Detail of a book of hours from Florence, Italy, c. 1490-1499. Morgan Library and Museum, New York, MS M.14 fol. 20 r. Image: The Morgan Library & Museum / Art Resource, NYNguyen’s fantastic, skeletal approach to anatomy adds the dynamism of character designs from sci-fi videogames. The swirling geometry of the central figure in Jeu de Paume, for instance, recalls the insect-like talons of Sarah Kerrigan from the StarCraft videogame series, 1998-present, one of the artist’s favorite games from childhood.i Nguyen relishes in the seemingly contrasting origins of his inspirations—“the internet was really my first exposure to art and history,” he explains—and yet, the combination isn’t anachronistic to him.ii
Rather, both the inherited art forms of the Renaissance and sci-fi video game design allow Nguyen to access an alternate timeline where past and future exist at once, which he plays out in compositions such as Jeu de Paume. “Tradition is exciting to me,” he says; “not tradition for its own sake but as like a fossil record of people trying to figure out something."iii Similarly, with sci-fi, "you’re imagining the future, but it’s also a form of alternate history, written in the future tense.”iv The lines are blurred, with Renaissance and videogame visuals playing the same game on the painted surface. “That’s very important to me,” Nguyen says, “going both into the past or into the future.”v
Collectors’ Digest
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Nguyen frequently collaborates with luxury fashion labels; his collaboration with Ottolinger in 2017 was worn by SZA, Dua Lipa, and Bella Hadid, among others, and he has most recently worked with Loewe for their F/W 2023 collection.
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He has had solo exhibitions at the Swiss Institute, New York; Kunstverein München, Munich; and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, among others.
i Kate Dwyer, “An Artist Who Blues Video Games and Italian Renaissance,” The New York Times, Aug. 20, 2021, online.
ii Julien Nguyen, quoted in Gianna Samms, “Julien Nguyen,” TheGuide.Art, Jun. 26, 2021, online.
iii Nguyen, quoted in Tessa Solomon, “An Introduction to Artist Julien Nguyen, the Latest Inspiration for Fashion Powerhouse Loewe,” ARTnews, Jan. 24, 2023, online.
iv Nguyen, quoted in Samms.
v Ibid.
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Provenance
Svetlana Gallery, New York
Private Collection, New York
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
New York, Svetlana Gallery, Journey to the West. Julien Nguyen, April 15–May 10, 2015
Artist Biography
Julien Nguyen
Julien Nguyen (b. 1990) was born in a Vietnamese-American artist, and lives and
works in Los Angeles. As a teenager growing up in Washington D.C. and during the
dawn of the Internet Age, Nguyen formed the basis of his aesthetic by playing video
games like Civilization III, Age of Empires and StarCraft, each with their own highly
stylized depictions of their respective worlds.
Nguyen’s work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial and has been the subject
of one-person exhibitions at the Swiss Institute in New York, Kunstverein München
in Munich, and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati.
3
Jeu de Paume
signed and dated "Julien Nguyen 2015" on the reverse
oil on canvas
43 1/4 x 35 1/2 in. (109.9 x 90.2 cm)
Painted in 2015.
Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $127,000
Carolyn Mayer
Associate Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
+1 212 940 1206
CMayer@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 17 May 2023
1
Noah Davis
Untitled
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $990,600
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2
Caroline Walker
Conservation
Estimate $150,000 - 350,000
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3
Julien Nguyen
Jeu de Paume
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $127,000
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4
Pablo Picasso
Tête de femme au chignon
Estimate $6,000,000 - 9,000,000
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5
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6
Louise Bonnet
The Red Pants
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
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7
Yayoi Kusama
Red Stripes
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,722,000
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8
Yayoi Kusama
Blue Spots
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,206,000
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9
Ewa Juszkiewicz
Untitled (after Ernst Thelott)
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $635,000
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10
Andy Warhol
Self-Portrait (Fright Wig)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,633,000
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11
Ed Ruscha
Dixie Red Seville
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
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12
Yoshitomo Nara
Guitar Girl
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,480,000
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13
Banksy
Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,724,500
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14
Henry Taylor
Dakar, Senegal #3
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $584,200
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15
Robert Colescott
A Death of an Old Mulatta
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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16
Rashid Johnson
Untitled Escape Collage
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $990,600
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17
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18
Roy Lichtenstein
Mirror #7
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $2,843,000
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19
Damien Hirst
Reconciliation
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $927,100
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20
Robert Ryman
Mark
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $3,811,000
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21
Wayne Thiebaud
Chocolate Merangue
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,238,000
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22
Anna Weyant
Unconditional Love
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $609,600
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23
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24
María Berrío
No One Can Hear You, Only the Wind
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $635,000
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25
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15)
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $4,295,000
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26
Wayne Thiebaud
Levee and Cow
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,085,000
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27
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,117,600
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28
Andy Warhol
Mona Lisa Four Times
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,359,000
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29
Ed Ruscha
Manual Mobility
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $3,448,000
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30
Jadé Fadojutimi
The Menstrual Marshland
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $533,400
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31
Helen Frankenthaler
On the Road
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,875,000
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32
Robert Rauschenberg
Bath
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $444,500
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33
This lot is no longer available.
34
Sanya Kantarovsky
Deprivation
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $266,700
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35
Roy Lichtenstein
Girl in Mirror
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,505,000
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36
Issy Wood
Untitled (Harley's foot thing)
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
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37
Simone Leigh
Figure (Cobalt)
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $825,500
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38
Joan Miró
L’Espace
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $381,000
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39
Joan Miró
Femme et oiseau
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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40
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Untitled” (March 5th) #2
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $635,000
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41
Sturtevant
Study for Warhol Marilyn
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $2,419,500
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