Tim Noble and Sue Webster - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Monday, June 28, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Modern Art, Inc., London

  • Literature

    T. Noble & S. Webster, Wasted Youth, New York, 2006, n.p. (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    Tim Noble and Sue Webster operate by juxtaposing the languages of trash, glamour and kitsch. Celebrating British youth culture and the legacy of Pop art, over the last two decades the duo have created a witty and ironic body of work filled with imagery culled from banal everyday life. Forever – the second light sculpture from Noble and Webster's iconic series – spells out in a nostalgic cursive script one of the most romantic and sentimental words in the English language, while acknowledging the text paintings of Jasper Johns and Ed Ruscha. However, the tacky carnival lights quickly turn what at first seemed like a study of the emotional connotations of a word into a display of how meaning can be lost within an abstract form. Referencing the insatiable beast of consumerism with its gaudy, casino-inspired, blinking electric lights, Forever invokes sentiments of loneliness and emptiness with its trite, almost meaningless declaration of love.
     

45

Forever

1996
One hundred ninety-six light fittings, bulbs and ice white UFO caps, 5 mm. foamex and electronic sequencer.
89 x 234 x 7 cm (35 x 92 x 2 in).
This work is one from an edition of five plus two artist's proofs and two artist's copies and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artists.

Estimate
£150,000 - 250,000 Ω♠

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

29 June 2010
London