Francisco Infante

F. Infante, "O svoei kontseptsii artefakta," in Artefakty: Frantsisco Infante; Varianty, Moscow: Central House of Artists, 1990, exhibition catalogue, p. 50
Maya Aguiriano, John Bowlt, and Nicoletta Misler, Francisco Infante: Artefacts, Bilbao: Sala de Exposiciones Rekalde, November 21, 1995—January 21, 1996, exhibition catalogue
Maria Bulanova and Alla Rosenfeld, Soviet Dis-Union: Socialist Realist and Nonconformist Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota: The Museum of Russian Art, 2006, p. 128
Jane A. Sharp, "In and Around Dvizhenie (Movement Group)," in Alla Rosenfeld, ed., Zimmerli Journal, Fall 2006, no. 4, pp. 76-87

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is in beautiful condition. The canvas has never been removed from its stretcher; the paint layer is cleaned, undamaged and unretouched. We recommend it to be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Francisco Infante, an unofficial artist who produced kinetic sculpture and non-representational paintings and graphics, follows in the tradition of the Russian avant-garde artists of the 1920s.

In the late 1960s, Infante was deeply affected by his frequent visits to Georges Costakis's collection of Russian avant-garde art in Moscow. Of particular significance was his first encounter with the work of Aleksandr Rodchenko and Kazimir Malevich. In 1970, Infante organized the group of artists and engineers called ARGO (Avtorskaia rabochaia gruppa; Authors' Working Group) with the idea of creating artificial systems analogous to natural phenomena. While participating in the group Dvizhenie (Movement) from 1962 to 1968, he also created independent works that focused on the notion of infinity and the form of the spiral; this work reflected the influence of contemporary Western artists such as Alexander Calder, Nicholas Schöffer, Robert Smithson, and Victor Vasarely. Despite the Soviet authorities' dislike of non-representational art, Infante's constructions were admired by the government's Ministry of Building and Ministry of Radiotechnological Industry. Some of his kinetic works were exhibited at the Moscow Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy (1966).

Infante's work was largely preoccupied with the spiral. The artist developed theories based on the projection of this form, which he expressed in various series, including that of the present lot. For Infante, the spiral arises from the infinite alternation of ideal horizontal and vertical lines. For this reason, the spiral has associations with other opposing aspects: good and evil, life and death, among others. As the artist has explained: "What is characteristic of the spiral—the alteration of its directional tendencies due to the autonomous impulse on one point—is also characteristic of other countless forms in life: mass takes turns with the void, evil with good, life with death... A being itself, evidently, does not escape this predetermination. When crossing the point where it goes on to its opposite state, it autonomously turns into a non-being."