Phillips’ 20th Century & Contemporary Art June Auctions
Including Works by Gerhard Richter, Peter Doig, Rudolf Stingel, Mark Bradford and More
LONDON – 16 JUNE 2017 – Phillips’ 20th Century & Contemporary Art June auctions will bring together a broad spectrum of international names, celebrating the rich diversity of the art landscape of today. The Evening Sale represents an important group of German artists including Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz, Albert Oehlen, Sigmar Polke, Thomas Schütte and Wolfgang Tillmans; 20th century masters Bridget Riley, Lucio Fontana and Keith Haring; and sought-after contemporary names from across the world including Mark Bradford, Sterling Ruby, Rebecca Warren, Jonas Wood and Oscar Murillo. Comprising 32 lots, the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale will take place on 29 June and will be followed by the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale on 30 June, featuring over 200 lots.
Dina Amin, Senior Director and Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Europe, said, “On the heels of our successful New York auctions last month, this season in London we are offering an exciting array of works from a diverse group of artists. Our global team has worked to create a sale that will engage with collectors around the world. Phillips’ sales of 20th Century & Contemporary Art have seen continued growth and we are confident that this season will demonstrate both the strength of the market and Phillips’ place within it.”
The Evening Sale brings together some of the foremost names in German 20th Century & Contemporary Art and is led by Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (682-4), an important example from one of the artist’s most celebrated abstract cycles. Executed in 1988, sublime accents of red cascade across the canvas, contrasting with hints of vermilion and acidic yellow to form an eye-catching interplay of light, texture and rhythm. Richter uses his unmistakable Squeegee technique, which he famously employed as a tool for painting to remove the artist’s hand from his composition.
The earliest work in the group is Ein Werktätiger, 1967 by Georg Baselitz, one of Germany’s most celebrated living artists. This painting hails from the series ‘Frakturbilder’, or ‘fracture paintings’, which use various strategies of destruction to fragment and reimagine their subject matter.
Sigmar Polke’s large Ohne Titel (Porträtist) was executed 12 years later in 1979 and is one of the artist’s most complex works on paper. Polke looks to challenge and reinvent the representation of objects, people, and in turn the way that one looks at artworks. Ohne Titel (Porträtist) was widely exhibited, not least in Polke’s own lifetime.
Albert Oehlen experiments with abstraction and reconstructs the concept of authorship and artistic technique using a mouse and basic computer, as seen in Abyss, 1997 (estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000). Oehlen challenges the role of the artist, the process of creation, and the very idea of figuration. Oehlen studied under Sigmar Polke at the prestigious University of Fine Arts in Hamburg.
Wolfgang Tillmans’ hypnotic Freischwimmer #84 belongs to an iconic and captivating series, epitomising the 2000 Turner Prize winner’s pioneering and innovative style. Similar works recently featured in the celebrated retrospective at Tate Modern, and are currently on view at the Fondation Beyeler. Divorcing photography from its essential apparatus, Tillmans exposes photographic paper, manipulating light as though it were painterly pigment.
Other highlights include Lucio Fontana’s Concetto Spaziale from 1961, a radiant example of the artist’s pioneering approach to painting (estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000). Concetto Spaziale, through the juxtaposition of the punctured plane, the relief of the Murano glass and the reflective, textured surface, transports the viewer toward the spirit of Venice. Concetto Spaziale can be viewed as a precursory investigation for Fontana’s celebrated Venezia series, an exceptional series of 22 works executed in the same year.
A leading figure of Arte Povera, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s vast La Gabbia celebrates the artist’s ability to engage the viewer as both subject and audience. Through its evocative use of medium, La Gabbia (the cage) demonstrates Pistoletto’s ability to cast the viewer as both onlooker and participant in the unfolding scene. At five meters wide, the four panels produce the effect of trapping the viewer both inside and out, creating a profoundly disconcerting environment.
Coming to the market for the first time is R72-19 by ZERO artist Jan Schoonhoven (estimate: £60,000-90,000). This work highlights Schoonhoven’s concern with form and volume, celebrating his novel approach to abstraction with commonplace materials. Post-War master César’s Compression de tonneaux from 1969 is a monumental example from his seminal Compressions series, which challenged existing notions of sculpture and focused on materials plucked from his urban and industrial environment (estimate: £250,000-300,000).
Another focal point for the sale is Keith Haring’s Untitled, 1984, an exceptional example of the artist’s visual language that was notably gifted to his sister Kristen Haring, with whom he was incredibly close. The accents of gold and black belong to Haring’s essential grammar; inspired by the artist’s time spent cruising the New York subway stations admiring graffiti on the underground.
The Evening Sale champions a rich diversity of international names from the contemporary age, from Tauba Auerbach, Oscar Murillo, and Rebecca Warren to American artists Mark Bradford, Joe Bradley, Sterling Ruby, Rudolf Stingel and Jonas Wood. SP04, executed in 2007, is an early evocative and electrifying example of Sterling Ruby’s prolific Spray Paint series, the fourth in a seminal body of work comprised of monumental paintings. Rebecca Warren, a contemporary of London’s Young British Artists, is also represented in the sale with Fascia III,. From a series exhibited at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, ILLUMInations, Fascia III is unyielding in both its celebration of femininity and confrontation of sexualised female stereotypes. Warren has forged her own artistic inquiry into gender roles, generating a uniquely progressive sculptural aesthetic.
Another notable highlight is Peter Doig’s Tunnel Painting (Country-rock), which follows his record breaking appearance in Phillips’ 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Auction in May 2017, when Rosedale set a world auction record for Doig and any living British artist. The present work, painted in 2000, recalls his years spent in Canada, manifested in a series of paintings based on the Don Valley Parkway, a tunnel built in 1961 on the eastern perimeter of the northbound highway in Toronto. Now the main highway in and out of the city, the famous rainbow tunnel, painted as a memorial by Berg Johnson at the age of 16, is now officially sanctioned as public art some 30 years on.
The Day Sale | 30 June 2017
One of the leading highlights of the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale is Tony Cragg’s poetic Black Diabas, a pivotal sculpture belonging to the species that the artist refers to as his Rational Being. This monumental series originating from the 1990s, is a group of organic abstract forms which evolve from drawings and are executed in a range of materials. Further highlights include Damien Hirst’s Holocaust, executed in 2003-2004, using flies and resin on canvas and Jonathan Horowitz’s Group Self-portrait in "Mirror #3 (Six Panels)".
Auction: Evening Sale: 29 June at 7pm | Day Sale: 30 June at 2pm
Auction viewing: Evening Sale: 21 - 30 June | Day Sale: 21 - 30 June || Monday to Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday 12pm-6pm
Location: 30 Berkeley Square, London
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Phillips is a leading global platform for buying and selling 20th and 21st century art and design. With dedicated expertise in the areas of 20th Century and Contemporary Art, Design, Photographs, Editions, Watches, and Jewelry, Phillips offers professional services and advice on all aspects of collecting. Auctions and exhibitions are held at salerooms in New York, London, Geneva, and Hong Kong, while clients are further served through representative offices based throughout Europe, the United States and Asia. Phillips also offers an online auction platform accessible anywhere in the world. In addition to providing selling and buying opportunities through auction, Phillips brokers private sales and offers assistance with appraisals, valuations, and other financial services.
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*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium; prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium.
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