Steven Parrino - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, November 15, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Nature Morte, New York

  • Exhibited

    New York, Bess Cutler Gallery, When Attitude Becomes Form, September – October 15, 1986

  • Literature

    K. Levin, “Ultravacant”, The Village Voice, New York, October 7, 1986, p. 80 (illustrated); B. Nickas and J. Koether, “Dark Star: Bob Nickas and Jutta Koether on Steven Parrino”, ArtForum, XLIII, No. 7, New York, March, 2005, p. 59 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    "I am still concerned with ‘art about art’, but I am also aware that ‘art about art’ still reflects the time in which it was made. Content is not denied… Content is not obvious… Content is sustained in the air or the vibe of the work." Steven Parrino      
     
     
     
     
    Steven Parrino’s Blue Idiot is a smartly played out concept: a deconstructed Minimalist painting and a purely simple name game. Extant in Parrino’s work is a passion for expression, a bold statement of text and color, displaying his knack for crafting something which is both object and concept. Parrino presents a canvas which has been literally stretched, and then pulled and restretched leaving exaggerated folds, slack canvas ruffled and distorted, displaying a third dimension often absent from more traditional painting. One is immediately reminded of Lucio Fontana’s Concetti Spaziali, in which the principle of violating and disrupting the canvases through tears and incisions ring true again here. Blue Idiot is a rare example of Parrino’s early body of work, exhibiting his youthful dealings combining color and text. A self-described disciplinarian, Parrino announced in the late 1990’s that he would do away with color and only paint with silver-colored aluminum and black.Thus, Blue Idiot is an exceptional work representing the artist’s then nascent career, ultimately embodying the austere practice and no-nonsense approach to art from which he derived so much fame and following.

8

Blue Idiot

1986
Acrylic and enamel on canvas.
72 x 48 in. (182.9 x 121.9 cm).
Signed, titled and dated “Blue Idiot S. Parrino 1986” on the reverse; stamped “Steven Parrino” on the right side edge.

Estimate
$400,000 - 600,000 

Sold for $657,000

Contemporary Art Part I

15 Nov 2007, 7pm
New York