Roberto Obregón - Latin America New York Thursday, May 29, 2014 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner, 1994

  • Catalogue Essay

    Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, Roberto Obregón lived most of his life in Caracas, Venezuela. As a conceptual artist, he employed analytical means of expression through photography and printmaking, and later in his career, through painting. The present lot, Disección, exemplifies Roberto Obregón’s methodical depiction of nature relating to time. The viewer is encouraged to move in a linear direction while experiencing the work, rather than looking at it from a fixed position. Disección suggests the idea of disintegration within the cyclical nature of evolution. Indeed, a “dissection” is the act of slicing an organism into segments in order to study its internal composition. Obregón’s black form becomes gradually smaller and smaller in size, until it disappears in the last segments of the work, gracefully evoking the inevitable transformation of time.

  • Artist Biography

    Roberto Obregón

    Venezuelan / Colombian • 1946 - 2003

    Venezuelan artist Roberto Obregón studied at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Julio Árraga in Maracaibo and was influenced by Eadweard Muybridge and Marcel Duchamp. The primary leitmotif in his body of work is the concept of cyclical time and roses. Obregón's works document his physical, bodily decay over time through the physical dissection of roses: He created installations of large rose petals made from cut rubber, which symbolized the dissection.

    These petal dissections can also be read as an accumulation of everything a rose could signify for humanity. Further, they denote the bond between the body and nature, as cycles of time and decay affect the body and the rose equally — a concept reminiscent of Félix González-Torres's work.

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60

Disección

1992
rubber and ink on particle board, in 4 parts
each 4 1/4 x 41 in. (10.8 x 104.1 cm.); overall 4 1/4 x 165 in. (10.8 x 419.1 cm.)

Estimate
$50,000 - 70,000 

Sold for $93,750

Contact Specialist
Laura González
Head of Latin America Sale
lgonzalez@phillips.com
+1 212 940 1216

Latin America

New York Auction 29 May 2014 4pm