Matthew Monahan - Contemporary Art Day Sale London Monday, February 10, 2014 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam
    Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2005

  • Exhibited

    London, Saatchi Gallery, The Shape of Things to Come: New Sculpture, 27 May-16 October 2011
    London, Royal Academy of Arts, USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery, 6 October- 4 November 2006
    Berlin, Berlin Biennial, Matthew Monahan, 2006
    St Petersburg, At the State Hermitage Museum, USA Today: At the State Hermitage Museum, 24 October 2007- 13 January 2008

  • Literature

    exh. cat., The Shape of Things to Come, Saatchi Gallery, published by the Saatchi Gallery in 2011, p. 69
    exh. cat., Shape of Things to Come: New Sculpture, Saatchi Gallery, published in 2009 by Jonathan Cape, pp. 414-415
    exh. cat., USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery, published by the Royal Academy of Arts in association with the Saatchi Gallery 2006, pp. 284
    exh. cat., USA Today: At the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia, published by the State Hermitage/ Royal Academy of Arts in 2006, p. 112

  • Catalogue Essay

    A Green Man is a pagan symbol found throughout European, Asian, and Arabic cultures, thought to denote ‘nature’, or the ‘cycle oflife’. Matthew Monahan’s Sweet Grunt reinvents this character as a malevolent golem: decrepit and inane, he towers in zombie-like stance over an assemblage of classical construction. Cut through with Perspex boxes, atop drawing atop plinth, Monahan’s nymph becomes an unlikely design element: colour coordinated, and efficiently incorporated into the whole. Material substance is subverted in this alternate history: stone transforms as wobbly paper surface, and ancient legend is constructed of malleable wax. Monahan’s work points towards an unsettling sense of cultural disorientation, where independent references coalesce in awkward harmony.

181

Sweet Grunt

2005
mixed media
165 x 100 x 110 cm. (64 7/8 x 39 3/8 x 43 1/4 in.)

Estimate
£10,000 - 15,000 

Contact Specialist
Henry Highley
Head of Sale
hhighley@phillips.com
+ 44 20 7318 4061

Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Day Sale 11 February 2014 2pm