Sanya Kantarovsky - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale London Friday, March 3, 2023 | Phillips

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  • Painted in 2019, Sanya Kantarovsky’s Bud 5 is a sardonic retelling of one of America’s most infamous broadcasting incidents. The title of the piece refers to R. Budd Dwyer, acting treasurer for the State of Pennsylvania during the 1980s. In a 1987 video that has gone down in US-television history, Dwyer committed suicide at a press conference by shooting himself live on air - after having been convicted on counts of conspiracy, fraud and racketeering.i Capturing one of the last moments of Dwyer’s life, Kantarovsky describes “I love the contradiction of this guarding, tender safekeeping gesture, while he wields an instrument of death”.ii

     

    Kantarovsky is inspired by the melancholic, surrealist literature of the early 20th Century European authors such as Franz Kafka and Mikhail Bulgakov and his work plays upon the absurd, ironic humour of a tragic situation.iii Broad, painterly brushstrokes and cool shades of blue watercolour are used to add a ghostly feel to the piece, reminiscent of works by Edvard Munch. The effect is one which is typical of Kantarovsky’s dark humour, seeking to embrace the uncomfortable nature of the joke.

     

     

    i William K. Stevens, ‘Official Calls in Press and Kills Himself’, New York Times, 23 January 1987, online.

    ii Dodie Kazanjian, ‘The Darkly Comic Art of Sanya Kantarovsky’, Vogue, online.

    iii Dodie Kazanjian, ‘The Darkly Comic Art of Sanya Kantarovsky’, Vogue, online.

    • Provenance

      Tanya Leighton, Berlin
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Literature

      Dodie Kazanjian, 'The Darkly Comic Art of Sanya Kantarovsky', Vogue, 15 May 2019, online

112

Bud 5

signed, titled and dated 'BUD (5) Sanya Kantarovsky 2019' on the overlap
oil and watercolour on canvas
190.5 x 140.3 cm (75 x 55 1/4 in.)
Executed in 2019.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠

Sold for £165,100

Contact Specialist

Simon Tovey

Specialist, Associate Director, Head of Day Sale, 20th Century & Contemporary Art
+44 20 7318 4084

stovey@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Auction 3 March 2023