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Wildly colorful lines of oil paint slash down the center of Mark Grotjahn’s Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30), 2014, over a ground of ovoid shapes. There is a fierce velocity to the thickly impastoed marks, which fly to all corners of the composition, like the trails of airplanes, or the silk sashes of trapeze artists, perhaps. Drawing on visual cues as wide-ranging as the vaulted ceilings of Italian Renaissance paintings and the neon lights of Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas, Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30) combines the artist’s painterly innovations to date with a rich legacy of traditional and modern art historical painting.
"[Grotjahn] possesses the ‘historical sense,’ which [Modernist writer T.S.] Eliot considered indispensable to an artist in his maturity: a consciousness of the past’s multiplicity, of the spectrum of historical voices that speak through any contemporary voice."
—Mark PrinceGrotjahn’s Circus group premiered at the artist’s first German solo exhibition at Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, in 2014, and its works now populate major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Broad, Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Circus combines the techniques of the artist’s two earlier series, Butterfly and Face, on a larger and more theatrical scale.iUntitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30) draws its geometric intensity and attention to perspective as an organizing force from Butterfly, and, as the title of the present work indicates, the Circus paintings are a subset of the Face series, in which the artist uses the human form as the basis of his abstraction. One can see eyes in the ovoid shapes in the top half of Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30), and the slope of a nose in the slashing verticals. Two small, red swirls, at bottom center, suggest nostrils over a white, featherlike upper lip.
The visibility of the faces in Grotjahn’s works, especially as Face morphs into Circus, grows more abstracted over time. The artist creates within an early Modernist paradigm in which abstraction and figuration are not mutually exclusive, and this tension serves as the inspiration for his work.ii As Mark Prince writes, “For Grotjahn, the vanishing point had become the vanishing self.”iii
![[left] Bartolomeo Montagna, Madonna Enthroned with Infant Jesus among Saints, 1485. Museo Civico, Vicenza, Italy. Image: © Ghigo G. Roli / Art Resource, NY [right] Umberto Boccioni, Materia, 1912. Private collection, Milan. Image: Bridgeman-Giraudon / Art Resource, NY](https://phillips.vo.llnwd.net/v1/web_dev/lot-component/178607_FIG 1-2_c6a488f8-194a-41f0-b3dc-38dca9e9dafa.png)
[left] Bartolomeo Montagna, Madonna Enthroned with Infant Jesus among Saints, 1485. Museo Civico, Vicenza, Italy. Image: © Ghigo G. Roli / Art Resource, NY
[right] Umberto Boccioni, Materia, 1912. Private collection, Milan. Image: Bridgeman-Giraudon / Art Resource, NYUntitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30) embodies the signature art-historical inspirations of Grotjahn’s oeuvre. In addition to the visual similarity to the practices of Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, the Circus series has a decidedly Italian bend to its referents. As with his three-tiered perspective paintings of the late 1990s, and the aforementioned Butterfly series, Grotjahn’s Circus draws inspiration in a combined subversion and homage to Italian Renaissance ideals of one- and two-point perspective. Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30), in particular, recalls the most challenging of Italian Renaissance perspectives: the four-point span of a vaulted cathedral ceiling.
The planes of perspective in Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30) pull each other at the seams, in a dynamic spread across the composition that itself references the intense, even overwhelming motion of Italian Futurist paintings of the early 20th century. The resulting web-like, swooping marks recall the draping canvas of a circus marquee, in garish, over-the-top carnival color.
Georges Seurat, Le Cirque, 1890-1891. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Image: Picture Alliance/DPA / Bridgeman Images
Grotjahn cites post-Impressionist painter George Seurat’s Le Cirque, 1890-1891, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, as the point of departure for the Circus series.iv Indeed, the tension between dynamic foreground and static background in Le Cirque is reflected in the layering of ovals and slashes in Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30), and the inherent high-brow, low-brow tension of the circus as a performance space further translates into the rest of Grotjahn’s sources. In addition to his art historical referents, he cites the Las Vegas casino, Circus Circus, as the title of the Kunstverein Freiburg exhibition.
The marquee of Circus Circus casino, Las Vegas. Image: Picture Alliance/DPA / Bridgeman Images Just as Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30) revels in an Italian Futurist and Abstract Expressionist dynamism, its bright colors contrasted against lines of black and blue remind one of how marquee lights shoot through the desert darkness of Las Vegas. The reference to hyper-consumerist Las Vegas is a further self-reference, too; Grotjahn’s earliest works were a series of paintings replicating the signs of local businesses. Like Italian Renaissance altarpieces, Futurist compositions, and Seurat’s Le Cirque, Las Vegas itself is an imagined, spectacular place; it is the unreal rainbow of untenable perspectives expressed emotively through the lines of Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30). The work is a riotous combination of references to Grotjahn’s own practice and art history at large. In short, it’s signature Grotjahn.
i Caroline Käding, “Der Trapezkünstler/The Trapeze Artist,” in Mark Grotjahn: Circus Circus, exh. cat., Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2014, pp. 17, 20.
ii Roberta Smith, “Mark Grotjahn: ‘Nine Faces,’” The New York Times, May 12, 2011, online.
iii Mark Prince, “The Divided Self: Mark Grotjahn’s ‘Circus’ series/Das geteilte Selbst: Mark Grotjahns ‘Circus’-Serie,” in Mark Grotjahn: Circus Circus, exh. cat., Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2014, p. 24.
iv Käding, 18.Provenance
Private Collection
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2019Literature
Mark Grotjahn: Circus Circus, exh. cat., Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2014, pp. 52, 60 (illustrated, p. 53)
"Mark Grotjahn: Circus Circus," DISTANZ, no. 9089, April 2015, p. 28 (illustrated)
Property of an Established Private Collector
16
Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30)
signed with the artist’s initials, numbered and dated "MPG XII 14" lower right; signed with the artist's initials and partially titled "C 12 C 12 MPG" on the turnover edge; further signed, titled, numbered and dated "UNTITLED (CIRCUS NO. 12 FACE 44.30) 2014 2014 M. Grotjahn MARK GROTJAHN #12 XII" on the overlap
oil on cardboard mounted on linen
101 1/2 x 73 5/8 in. (257.8 x 187 cm)
Painted in 2014.
Estimate
$8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,809,000
Amanda Lo Iacono
Global Managing Director and Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
+1 212 940 1278
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Carolyn Mayer
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20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 15 November 2022
1
Ilana Savdie
Marimonda Desplegada
Estimate $50,000 - 70,000
Sold for $176,400
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2
Danica Lundy
Miss Fist Kiss
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $189,000
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3
Lauren Quin
Arrow
Estimate $70,000 - 100,000
Sold for $163,800
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4
Avery Singer
Untitled
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,724,000
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5
Rashid Johnson
Standing Broken Men
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,724,000
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6
Pablo Picasso
Mousquetaire buste
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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7
Julie Mehretu
Tsunemasa (next to Kaija)
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,386,000
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8
Cy Twombly
Untitled
Estimate $35,000,000 - 45,000,000
Sold for $41,640,000
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9
René Magritte
Le météore
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,265,000
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10
Amy Sherald
Pilgrimage of the Chameleon
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,087,000
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11
Loie Hollowell
Lick, Lick in Purple, maroon-yellow
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,361,000
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12
Tom Wesselmann
Mouth #14 (Marilyn)
Estimate $3,000,000 - 5,000,000
Sold for $3,236,500
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13
René Magritte
Le coup de grâce
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,966,000
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14
Anna Weyant
Bum
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $390,600
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15
Mark Bradford
He Barked Just Like a Watchdog
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,870,000
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16
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Circus No. 12 Face 44.30)
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,809,000
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17
Marc Chagall
Le Père
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $7,404,500
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18
Marlene Dumas
Snow White in the Wrong Story
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,781,000
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19
María Berrío
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $1,603,000
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20
Alex Katz
The Grey Dress
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $2,208,000
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21
Yayoi Kusama
All The Eternal Love
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,966,000
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22
Alexander Calder
Plutôt jaune
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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23
Amy Sherald
Madame Noire
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
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24
Jean-Michel Basquiat
To Repel Ghosts
Estimate $7,000,000 - 10,000,000
Sold for $7,862,500
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25
This lot is no longer available.
26
Yayoi Kusama
Nets Blue
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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27
Lucy Bull
Untitled
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $478,800
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28
Willem de Kooning
Untitled
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,870,000
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29
Milton Avery
Hot Moon
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,208,000
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30
Amoako Boafo
Pink Shorts
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $403,200
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31
Rashid Johnson
Untitled Anxious Collage
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $567,000
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32
Joan Mitchell
Cobalt
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $3,418,000
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33
Andy Warhol
Oxidation
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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34
Alexander Calder
Petite croix
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $4,023,000
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35
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36
Willem de Kooning
Event in a Barn
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,055,000
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37
Pablo Picasso
Paysage au pin
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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38
Mickalene Thomas
I Can’t See Me Without You
Estimate $350,000 - 550,000
Sold for $441,000
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39
Balthus
La Sieste
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $1,058,500
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40
Andy Warhol
Nosepicker I: Why Pick on Me (The Broad Gave Me My Face But I Can Pick My Own Nose)
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $491,400
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41
Andy Warhol
Living Room
Estimate $250,000 - 450,000
Sold for $315,000
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42
Robert Motherwell
Open No. 25: In Blue with Variations
Estimate $900,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $2,329,000
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43
Luc Tuymans
Absence
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $453,600
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44
Ernie Barnes
Slam Before the Storm
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $604,800
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45
Carmen Herrera
Noche Verde
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $567,000
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46
Anne Truitt
Autumn Dryad
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $567,000
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