Provenance
Zach Feuer, New York
Catalogue Essay
'So I was like, 'What is beauty? What does that even mean?' I became open to it, whatever the hell it is, and the next moment I’m making the most beautiful fucking paintings anyone has ever seen.'

- MARK FLOOD, 2008

In a radical departure from his mutilated, brashly sadistic celebrity-collages of the 1980s, since 2008 Houston artist Mark Flood has been creating delicate ‘lace-paintings’ to great critical acclaim. Flood builds layers of pattern and texture using fabric salvaged from thrift stores. Unabashedly decorative, the resulting paintings form compelling relics of discarded and decaying beauty. The present lot is drained of the psychedelic colour of many of Flood’s other lace pieces: attenuated and ghostly, it confronts the viewer with an inky void that has ripped through its fragile veil, leaving an intricate trace that frames the canvas.

As Alison Gingeras writes, Flood’s ‘systematic procedure of precisely layering fabric and paint together recalls both the palimpsests of colour in Gerhard Richter’s so-called squeegee paintings or Abstraktes Bild series as well as Rudolf Stingel’s silver ornamental paintings with baroque damask wallpaper.’ (Alison Gingeras, ‘The Lace Paintings’ in Pressed Release: Notes on Mark Flood’s Hateful Years 1979-1989, Luxembourg & Dayan, New York, 2012). Stingel’s upbringing in the Italian Tyrol and Vienna breathes forth the luxurious fabric motifs that shimmer through his paintings, speaking of rich historicity and the strata of societal memory: Flood’s lacy window seems to offer a glimpse into some other unknown depth, the title Another Hole in the Ground reinforcing an image of excavation, damage or disruption, and hinting at an endless series. The floral patterning of the lacework connotes femininity, even domesticity, and somehow pulls the painting shy of abstraction. As with Richter, the palimpsest process forms a spectral record of inscription and erasure. The result is a coolly mature work, a subtle and wordlessly poignant surface that expresses both beauty and pain, splendour and loss.

28

Mark Flood

Another Hole in the Ground

2012
acrylic on canvas
213.4 x 182.9 cm (84 x 72 in.)
Signed and dated 'Mark Flood 2012' on the overlap.

Estimate
£20,000 - 30,000 ‡

Sold for £42,500

Contact Specialist
Peter Sumner
Head of Contemporary Art, London
psumner@phillips.com
+44 207 318 4063

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London Auction 12 February 2015 7pm

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Rashid Johnson
We Real Cool
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £116,500
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2
Nate Lowman
Six Shooter
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3
Kelley Walker
Untitled
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000
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4
Fredrik Værslev
Untitled (Canopy Painting: Blue and Orange V)
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ♠
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5
Danh Vo
We The People (detail), Element #L1
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡♠
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6
Alex Israel
Sky Backdrop
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7
Tauba Auerbach
Untitled (Fold) X
Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000 ‡
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8
Ai Weiwei
Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡
Sold for £2,882,500
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9
Christopher Wool
Untitled
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
Sold for £1,426,500
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10
Urs Fischer
Bad Timing, Lamb Chop!
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
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11
Mark Bradford
Biting the Book
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12
Anish Kapoor
Untitled
Estimate £450,000 - 650,000 ♠
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13
Andy Warhol
Diamond Dust Shoes
Estimate £1,500,000 - 2,500,000 ‡
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14
Allen Jones
Sin-Derella
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15
Nate Lowman
Trash Landing Marilyn #12
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16
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (Dinosaur)
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17
Cecily Brown
Park
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18
Albert Oehlen
Greifen
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19
Anselm Kiefer
Die Argonauten
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20
Antony Gormley
Settlement
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21
Julie Mehretu
Invisible Sun (algorithm 2)
Estimate £700,000 - 900,000 ‡
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22
Cy Twombly
Untitled
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23
Anish Kapoor
Untitled
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24
Banksy
Angel
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25
Barry Flanagan RA
Hare on Pyramid
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26
Julian Schnabel
Sonanbul
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27
Ai Weiwei
Coloured vases (in 3 parts)
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
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28
Mark Flood
Another Hole in the Ground
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡
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29
Brent Wadden
Alignment #22
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30
Oscar Murillo
Bingo
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ♠
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London Auction 12 February 2015 7pm

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Provenance

Catalogue Essay

28

Mark Flood

Another Hole in the Ground

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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