Mark Handforth - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, May 17, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York

  • Exhibited

    New York, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, Keep Your Head to the Sky, July, 2004

  • Literature

    M. Varadinis and Kunsthaus Zurich, eds., Mark Handforth, Zurich, 2005, p. 40 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    “Pop is the American cultural language. It’s unpretentious and it’s the only culture in the US that is not learned or borrowed. My sculptures are pop, they recognize popular culture as the real culture of this country and they are ready-mades, but their meaning doesn’t solely lie in the surface. They deal with ‘the facts on the ground.’ Literally the ‘fact on the ground’—lampposts, signs, hydrants, tires, you name it—and with the existential implications of those facts.” (Mark Handforth in interview with M. Varadinis, “All That Is Solid Melts into Air”, Mark Handforth, Zurich, 2005, p. 19).

    Mark Handforth’s work simultaneously drives in two directions: as deconstructed elements from our terrestrial life and as works of sculptural art. The artist transforms the familiarity we hold for these objects and expresses a new reality through their bends, twists, and repositioning. Having studied fine art in Germany through the 1990’s, Handforth made a deliberate choice to begin his career in Miami. “I wanted to live without all that cultural baggage, and I wanted to find out what it was like for me to make work in a place where I had no cultural reference points or influences besides a few great movies, some cheap crime novels, and a great 80s TV series. Miami is the city of Miami Vice and Scarface (1983) and everybody sees the city through those eyes. There are no cultural hierarchies, and that’s a very good starting point for making art.” (ibid, p. 22).

3

Schlosspark

2003
Painted steel.
96 x 156 x 78 in. (243.8 x 396.2 x 198.1 cm).
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Estimate
$50,000 - 70,000 

Sold for $144,000

Contemporary Art Part I

17 May 2007
7pm New York