Piotr Uklański - Under the Influence New York Tuesday, February 27, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York.

  • Literature

    R. Biuro, P. Uklanski, ed., Earth, Wind, and Fire, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2004,
    pp. back end cover (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    Summer Love — The First Polish Western is Piotr Uklanski’s highly regarded debut film that was screened at various film festivals throughout 2006.
    Most notably it was included in the 63rd Annual Venice Film Festival, the
    Athens Film Festival, the Warsaw International Film Festival and the Polish
    Film Festival in the United States. The highly charged images represented
    in the present lot are film stills which convey the depth and range of
    emotion in Uklanski’s visual narrative.
    The film’s title claims that it is the first “first Polish Western” although
    Uklanski deems it more of an allegory; one that uses the language of a
    Western to tell a universally understood story of desire, love,
    embarrassment, pain and death. With Summer Love — The First Polish
    Western, Uklanski probes the notions of cultural identity and authenticity
    by attempting to recreate the quintessential American film genre set
    in the remote landscapes of Poland with native actors.
    Uklanski has previously explored this theme of removing recognizable
    nationalistic imagery, such as the Western, from their natural environments
    and re-appropriating them into a foreign context. In his Nazi Series Uklanski
    re-photographed movie posters and film stills featuring iconic Hollywood
    actors such as Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford dressed in Nazi regalia.
    This unique re-interpretation of famous actors, often lauded in their films as
    heroes, placed in the same narrative context as one of the most infamous
    eras in modern history empowers Uklanski to manipulate and blend the
    notions of national identity and cultural disintegration. The artist builds upon
    these psychological crossroads in Summer Love — The First Polish Western
    in order to communicate to the viewer that taken out of everyday context,
    typical Western imagery can be challengingly fresh and innovative.

40

Summer Love — The First Polish Western

2000
16 Iris prints on Somerset paper in a custom leather portfolio with geniune leather western gun belts with 40 .38 caliber bullets.
Iris prints: 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm) each. Portfolio: 21 1/2 x 17 x 2 in. (54.6 x 43.2 x 5.1 cm).
This work is from an edition of 20 and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Estimate
$70,000 - 90,000 

Under the Influence

26 Feb 2007, 10am & 2pm
New York