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Auction 21 October 2pm BST

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30 Berkeley Square, London (map)

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Viewing
\n14 - 20 October
\nMonday-Saturday 10am-6pm
\nSunday 12pm-6pm

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\n","auctionDetailsSmall","London Auction 21 October 2020","extraInfo","

Tamila Kerimova
\nSpecialist, Head of Day Sale, Director

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20th Century & Contemporary Art

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+44 20 7318 4065
\ntkerimova@phillips.com

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William Kentridge, Mr and Mrs Eckstein, 1991. Estimate £160,000 - 200,000. 20th Century and Contemporary Art Day Sale, London.

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Mr and Mrs Eckstein, 1991, is a spectacular example of William Kentridge’s politically induced charcoal drawings. Featuring a recurring character in Kentridge’s work, the eponymous Mr. Eckstein, along with his curvaceous wife Mrs. Eckstein, the drawing presents the viewer with the aftermath of a dramatic event, devising a chaotic setting that is typical of the artist’s usually barren environments.

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Mr. Eckstein evinces a possible desire for redemption, in the wake of the mayhem caused by his financially motivated actions.
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First appearing in the artist’s 1989 animated film Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris, Mr. Eckstein (Soho Eckstein) epitomises Kentridge’s vision of a Johannesburg mining magnate, characterised by his greediness and capitalist drive. Yet here, Mr. Eckstein is portrayed kneeling by his wife’s side, leaning over her figure in a protective manner, seemingly kissing her right shoulder and delicately placing his right hand above her head. Depicted in such a warm and empathetic predisposition, Mr. Eckstein evinces a possible desire for redemption, in the wake of the mayhem caused by his financially motivated actions.

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The land upon which the two figures lay furthermore elicits powerful metaphoric associations. Arid, lifeless and burned, the environment is haloed by a cloud of smoke that seems to evaporate in the background, leaving nothing but calcined tree trunks and what appears to be a school board. Together, these erasures symbolise a torn nation as well as the challenges required to repair collateral casualties. In this perspective, the landscape becomes a possible symbol for the irreparable damage caused by the mining industry in Johannesburg. The gestural marks, shadows and smudges furthermore build upon the emotion elicited by this fragile and impermanent atmosphere. In using these marks, Kentridge reinforces the chaotic ambiance of repression which reigned at the time of his drawing, suggesting that the only two survivors are the depicted Mr. and Mrs Eckstein, cocooned at the centre of the composition.

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© William Kentridge and Private Collection

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With his animated charcoal films specifically, Kentridge was able to share his own insights regarding the segregated world he grew up in.
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With his animated charcoal films specifically, Kentridge was able to share his own insights regarding the segregated world he grew up in—a universe often foreign to his Western audience. The wounds caused by this period in South Africa are what inspired most of his work. As such, Mr and Mrs Eckstein is a beautiful example of the artist’s fusion between artistic production and personal political assertions.

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Discover More from the 20th Century and Contemporary Art Day Sale >

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Recommended Reading

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In Conversation with Allen Jones >

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Haring, Condo and Basquiat Masterworks to Benefit the Bedari Foundation >

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\n","publishDate","2020-10-15T04:24:47.000000Z","authorCredit","Sarah Bochicchio","coverPosX",50,"coverPosY",0,"articleUrl","https://www.phillips.com/article/64338888/embracing-in-a-chaotic-landscape","displayOrder",3,"auctionEditorialID",1007,"editorialID",3201,"flocklerID",64338888,"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/longo-phillips-1-333fb590-3505-4d37-b969-8dce8efe4564_s600x0.jpg","A guide to 'Bodyhammer,' 1993, where the viewer is both the stock and the barrel, the attacker and the victim, the powerful and the helpless.","Robert Longo, Between Violence and Serenity ","

Robert Longo, Bodyhammer: Tec 9, 1993. Estimate £150,000 - 200,000. 20th Century and Contemporary Art Day Sale, London.

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Executed monochromatically in charcoal and graphite on a monumental scale, Bodyhammer, 1993, is a captivating contradiction: dark and light, calming and antagonistic, beautiful and confrontational. A dichotomy between violence and serenity. The current work was exhibited at Metro Pictures in 1993 as part of a series entitled Bodyhammers that took as its subject the gun—as an emblem of escalating violence and in reaction to the growing concern of American gun culture. Earlier that year, Longo’s 14-year-old son had returned home from the local basketball court in New York City recounting how another child had wielded a gun. Longo recalled, “You didn’t have to be the strongest or the toughest kid anymore, you just needed to have a gun. It made me realise that I should pay more attention to guns.”

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Making art in itself is a political act...I don’t want to instruct or preach…I want to present something that has a visual impact, that lets the viewer make a decision. – Robert Longo
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The series takes its name and inspiration from a 1992 Japanese science-fiction, horror film Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer in which a Japanese salary man, finds his body transfiguring into a weapon through pure fury after his son is kidnapped by a gang of violent brutes. Further blurring the lines between his film inspiration and Longo’s charcoal and graphite works on paper, the Bodyhammer series was created just prior to Longo’s directing of a film adaptation of William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic.

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Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s film, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, 1992.

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Like that of the Japanese salary man, Johnny Mnemonic’s appeal to Longo is evident—as a technological repository, he is receptive to notions and beliefs that are not his own. Johnny Mnemonic became a suitable metaphor for what is a fundamental and reoccurring theme in Longo’s oeuvre: technological, political and cultural power. Similarly, the gun is an object that amalgamates technology, the self, body, politics, society and technology, an embodiment of American society.

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As Elaine Scarry notes in her analysis of physical suffering and its relation to the numerous vocabularies and cultural forces, “every weapon has two ends. In converting the other person’s pain into his power, the torturer experiences the entire occurrence exclusively from the non-vulnerable end of the weapon.” The absence of human presence in these works puts the viewer at both the stock and the barrel, the attacker and the victim, the powerful and the helpless.

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Discover More from 20th Century and Contemporary Art Day Sale >

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Recommended Reading

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Alexander Calder and Yves Klein’s Poetic Approaches to Colour and Space >

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In Conversation with Allen Jones >

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\n","2020-10-15T04:07:58.000000Z","https://www.phillips.com/article/64338397/robert-longos-bodyhammer",2,1008,3202,64338397,"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/201014-phillips-7_mgl9256-6982c4aa-080c-42de-9cf5-5b9a81dfb848_s600x0.jpg","Tour our Evening & Day 20th Century & Contemporary Art Sales in this virtual reality walkthrough from 30 Berkeley Square. On view: Jean-Michel Basquiat, George Condo, Keith Haring, Georg Baselitz, and more.","VR Walkthrough: 20th Century & Contemporary Art ","

Travel through our galleries at 30 Berkeley Square in London and browse our 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales.

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Featuring leading works from the most sought-after artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, our Evening Sale is comprised of an exceptional group of works from Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Georg Baselitz, Alberto Giacometti, Banksy, Nicolas Party, Joan Mitchell and more.

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On view now, our Day Sale features masterworks from Genieve Figgis, Alexander Calder, Kehinde Wiley, Eddie Martinez, Stanley Whitney, Karin Kneffel, and more.

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Visit our 30 Berkeley Square galleries through 20 October to preview our London 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales ahead of the 20-21 October auctions.

\n","2020-10-15T21:02:55.000000Z","https://www.phillips.com/article/64375999/vr-walkthrough-20th-century-and-contemporary-art-10",968,3204,64375999,"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/alexander-calder-group-untitled-phillips-df7a8b00-bca6-4987-9241-69b7144fc3f9_s600x0.jpg","\"Such an approach has fostered a simplicity of form and clarity of contour in his work.\" – James Johnson Sweeney","Alexander Calder and Yves Klein’s Poetic Approaches to Colour and Space","

Alexander Calder. Above: Untitled, circa 1975. Estimate £100,000 - 150,000; From left to right: Untitled, 1975. Estimate £200,000 - 300,000; Untitled, 1954. Estimate £150,000 - 200,000; Untitled, circa 1953. Estimate £200,000 - 300,000; Untitled, 1964. Estimate £150,000 - 200,000. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale.

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Although manifesting in different forms, five delicate sculptures by Alexander Calder and an idiosyncratically saturated blue sponge by Klein both offer poetic meditations on the properties of colour, balance, and space.

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Executed between 1953 and 1975, Calder’s untitled works illustrate the artist’s two quintessential sculptural manifestations: the stabile and the mobile. Ceaselessly animating the spaces they occupy, Calder’s "mobiles" and "stabiles" resemble materialized levitations. They challenge the sculptural medium’s traditions of staticity and conventional presentation, and—whether designed to hang from ceilings, stand on grounded supports, or remain static in natural settings—they echo Sartre’s claim that, “If it is true that in sculpture movement must be cut into the motionless, then it would be an error to relate Calder’s art to sculpture.” With idiosyncratic grace and delicacy, Calder’s abstractions propel their architectural shell into a celestial realm that removes them from perceived notions of space and time.

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Alexander Calder, Untitled, circa 1953. Estimate £200,000 - 300,000. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale.

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Calder followed a meticulous method enacted through the careful use and manipulation of a particular set of materials. “Calder’s characteristic material is metal,” wrote James Johnson Sweeney. “He has always avoided modelling in favour of direct handling—cutting, shaping with a hammer, or assembling piece by piece. Such an approach has fostered a simplicity of form and clarity of contour in his work. It allies him with [Constantin] Brancusi, [Jean] Arp, [Henry] Moore and [Alberto] Giacometti in their repudiation of virtuosity.”

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Standing within the ranks of such seminal modern figures, whom Sweeney contends are Calder’s conceptual kin, the artist also shared close relationships with a number of artists who informed his own practice. The artist counted Arp, who came up with the linguistic contraction “stabile” in 1932 and Marcel Duchamp, who coined the term “mobile” a year prior, among his close friends.

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Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1975. Estimate £200,000 - 300,000. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale.

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Drenched in vibrant red, yellow and black hues, the four Calder works were executed at a time when Calder’s poetic vision was gaining increasing critical attention, when major retrospectives taking place in institutions including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, 1964, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, 1964, and the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, 1965. These shows anticipated his solo exhibition at the Fondation Maeght in 1969, and his seminal retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1976.

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One day I noticed the beauty of the blue in the sponge; at once this working tool became raw material for me. –Yves Klein
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Also vibrant and an elegant, simple, yet metaphysical object, Yves Klein’s Sculpture Éponge bleue sans titre (SE 281) is a sumptuous example of the artist’s pioneering Sculptures Éponges (Sponge Sculptures). “The sponge has that extraordinary capacity to absorb and become impregnated with whatever fluid, which was naturally very seductive to me,” the artist explained. “Thanks to the natural and living nature of sponges, I was able to make portraits to the readers of my monochromes, which, after having seen and travelled into the blue of my paintings, returned from them completely impregnated with sensibility, just as the sponges.”

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Yves Klein, Sculpture Éponge bleue sans titre (SE 281), 1961. Estimate £40,000 - 60,000. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale.

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Embarking on what he called his “Blue Revolution,” Klein coined the ultramarine colour that he would subsequently register under his name: “International Klein Blue” or “IKB.” In Sculpture Éponge bleue sans titre (SE 281), the object’s beautiful sponge material emulates a flowering form and imbues the work with elevated, spiritual associations.

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Quiet yet lively, Calder’s untitled works and Klein’s Sculpture Éponge bleue sans titre (SE 281) both meditate on the relationship between object and environment, exploring familiar spaces and sensibilities through a poetic language entirely their own.

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Discover More from the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale >

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\n\n

Recommended Reading
\n
\nSavage Beauty: Georg Baselitz’s Monumental Self-Portrait >

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Helen Frankenthaler: Paintings, 1973-1981 >

\n\n

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'My work is about a process of drawing that tries to find a way through the space between what we know and what we see.' —William Kentridge

Depicting two figures embracing amid a chaotic landscape, Mr and Mrs Eckstein, 1991, is a spectacular example of William Kentridge’ politically induced charcoal drawings. Featuring a recurring character in Kentridge’s work - the eponymous Mr. Eckstein, along with his curvaceous wife Mrs. Eckstein - the drawing presents the viewer with the aftermath of a dramatic event, devising a chaotic setting that is typical of the artist’s usually barren environments. First appearing in the artist’s 1989 animated film Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris, Mr. Eckstein (Soho Eckstein) epitomises Kentridge’s vision of a Johannesburg mining magnate, characterised by his greediness and capitalist drive. Yet here, Mr. Eckstein is portrayed kneeling by his wife’s side, leaning over her figure in a protective manner, and seemingly kissing her right shoulder whilst delicately placing his right hand above her head. Depicted in such a warm and empathetic predisposition, Mr. Eckstein evinces a possible desire for redemption, in the wake of the mayhem caused by his financially-motivated actions.

The land upon which the two figures lay furthermore elicits powerful metaphoric associations. Arid, lifeless and burned, the environment is haloed by a cloud of smoke that seems to evaporate in the background, leaving nothing but calcined tree trunks and what appears to be a school board. Together, these erasures symbolise a torn nation as well as the challenges that will be faced to repair collateral casualties. In this perspective, the landscape becomes a possible symbol for the irreparable damage caused by the mining industry in Johannesburg. The gestural marks, shadows and smudges furthermore build upon the emotion elicited by this fragile and impermanent atmosphere. In using these marks, Kentridge reinforces the chaotic ambiance of repression which reigned at the time of his drawing, suggesting that the only two survivors are the depicted Mr. and Mrs Eckstein, cocooned at the centre of the composition.

Over the course of his artistic practice, Kentridge has often fused artistic production and personal political assertions. As the son of two anti-apartheid lawyers and civil-rights activists, the artist quickly cultivated political motivations of his own, reinforced by his research in African history and politics as a student, prior to becoming an artist. His upbringing would indeed highly influence and inspire themes addressed throughout his oeuvre. Equally, the hybrid artistic genre he devised in coalescing various media including drawing, theatre production and film seemed to follow a desire to render his art alive, vibrant, and relevant. With his animated charcoal films specifically, Kentridge was able to share his own insights regarding the segregated world he grew up in - a universe often foreign to his Western audience. The wounds caused by this period in South Africa is what has inspired most of his work; as such, Mr and Mrs Eckstein is a beautiful example of the artist’s fusion between artistic production and personal political assertions.

William Kentridge, his studio and his practice

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159

William Kentridge

Mr and Mrs Eckstein

Further Details

Full-Cataloguing

William Kentridge