拍品 22
  • 22

君特·弗格

估價
200,000 - 300,000 GBP
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招標截止

描述

  • Günther Förg
  • 《無題》
  • 壓克力彩鉛塊木板
  • 240 x 160公分;94 1/2 x 63英寸
  • 1987年作

來源

Annina Nosei Gallery, New York

Private Collection

Sotheby’s, New York, 9 March 2012, Lot 298 (consigned by the above)

Galerie Max Hetzler (acquired from the above sale)

Acquired from the above by the present owner 

Condition

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the silver of the lead is slightly deeper and richer in the original. Condition: Please refer to the department for a professional condition report.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

拍品資料及來源

Executed on a monumental scale, Günther Förg’s Untitled is a chromatically intense and superlative example of the artist’s iconic Lead Paintings. These monolithic and muscular paintings stand at the very apex of Förg’s multifaceted practice, which spans over thirty years and includes media as diverse as painting, sculpture, photography and installation. Created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this exhaustive series, which masterfully juxtaposes smooth flat paint against the coarse patina of pliable lead, is considered one of the great contemporary contributions to European abstract art. As Förg has said, “For me, abstract art today is what one sees, and nothing more” (Günther Förg in conversation with Thomas Groetz, cited in: Exh. Cat., Vienna and Klosterneuberg, Essl Museum, Günther Förg: Back and Forth, 2007, p. 13). Through his bold and visual embrace of pure, unadulterated colour and his fascination with its unique interaction with weighty unprimed lead, Förg has utterly reconfigured and re-directed Minimalism’s trajectory and in doing so has rightfully instated himself as one of the most eminent painters of our time.

Eschewing the traditional canvas format, the towering almost herculean Lead Paintings are made by tirelessly wrapping vast sheets of lead, often in several layers, around a wooden frame; a process that imbues Förg’s work with its entirely unique material presence. As visible in the lower register of the present work, fold marks are discernible where the lead has been wrought and wrestled flat over its support thus acting as an indexical referent of the artist’s physical wrangling with metal. Leaving the lead completely untreated, the artist would then traverse over the chalky, oxidised surface with rich, luscious pigment in bold colour fields, which emphasise the solidity of the support and endow these powerful works with their overwhelming gravitas. In Förg’s practice, the Lead Paintings never include more than two colours; in Untitled deep unmodulated plum dominates the upper register, providing a tantalising visual counterpart to the silvery surface of the robust lead. The textural variance of the metal lends this work its constant intrigue: “I like very much the qualities of lead – the surface, the heaviness. Some of the paintings were completely painted, and you only experience the lead at the edges; this gives the painting a very heavy feeling – it gives the colour a different density and weight. In other works the materials would be explicitly visible as grounds. I like to react on things, with the normal canvas you have to kill the ground, give it something to react against. With the metals you already have something – its scratches, scrapes…” (Günther Förg in conversation with David Ryan, in: David Ryan, Talking Painting: Dialogue with Twelve Contemporary Abstract Painters, London 2002, p. 77).

Förg’s career-long fascination with material qualities is something that is firmly entrenched within the history of Modernism. We immediately think of the precedent of Robert Ryman, whose practice was so focused on materiality, whilst the muscular, virile use of lead in Untitled instantly recalls the organic, powerful sculptures of Richard Serra. Visually, however, the colour field works of Abstract Expressionist giants like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman are perhaps the most obvious precedent, while the scratchy marks apparent in the upper register of the work remind us of Cy Twombly's canonical blackboard works. Nonetheless, the present work is distanced from Abstract Expressionism’s concern with the sublime and metaphysical aura; Untitled is instead a manifesto of pure formalism, an essay in Förg’s defining rationalism and an utter celebration of absolute materiality.