Vija Celmins - Modern and Contemporary Editions New York Sunday, November 23, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Literature

    Samantha Rippner page 54

  • Catalogue Essay

    Vija Celmins, long identified with her quiet images of ocean surfaces, star-filled night skies, and barren desert floor, has recently focused her sharp eye on the intricate construction of the spider's web.  A seeming departure from those boundless vistas, which she meticulously contains within careful compositions, the web, in face, offers us a key to understanding her elusive imagery and, perhaps, reveals something about the artist herself.  For unlike Odilon Redon's fantastical araignées or the uniquely personal arachnids of Louise Bourgeois, Celmin's webs arrive absent their makers: no obvious signs of life or its intrinsic expressiveness are visible.  Yet we are left, ironically, to contemplate the product of a painstaking effort--by both the spider and the artist.  This is because Celmins does not imbue the spider with iconographical significance, as other artists have done. She takes a more pragmatic approach, identifying with it as a fellow builder of structures that, although possessing an inherent constancy, are each subtly different.  (Samantha Rippner, The Prints of Vija Celmins, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2002, p. 9)

19

Untitled (Web 4)

2002
Aquatint and drypoint in grey with burnishing and scraping, on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper, with full margins,
I. 15 3/8 x 19 in. (39.1 x 48.3 cm)
S. 20 1/2 x 24 1/8 in. (52.1 x 61.3 cm)

signed, dated and numbered 2/65 in pencil (there were also 10 artist's proofs), published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles (with their blindstamp), in excellent condition, framed.

Estimate
$9,000 - 12,000 

Modern and Contemporary Editions

23 Nov 2008, 2pm
New York