Steven Parrino

Art & Public, Geneva
Acquired by the present owner from the above

This work is in very good condition overall. Please refer to the following condition report prepared by Simon Parkes Art Conservation. Unframed.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Never is Steven Parrino's anarchic energy more palpable than in the bright and punchy Freak Wad (Fuckhead Bubble Gum) from 1995. Parrino typically worked in a colorless, monochromatic palette, yet the present work is emblazoned with an electric and deeply saturated pink hue. Its unique color seems almost ironically sweet and superfluously saccharine in contrast to his archetypal black, gray and silver canvases. The title is similarly arresting and nonsensical, casting a nihilistic shadow onto the seemingly cheery work. Parrino often sourced his titles from the noise and aural pollution of the New York City streets.

In his signature aesthetic, Parrino takes a previously completed and unsold work covered in pink enamel and assaults it by twisting, slashing, scrunching and mangling the canvas, thereby creating a new work, almost unrecognizable from the original. Parrino likens himself to Dr. Frankenstein in this destructive process, hacking away at his old canvases that he failed to sell. Indeed, Parrino only sold two works while he was living, both for around $10,000. In a sense, Parrino is acting out violently and aggressively on his past failures and foreshadowing his tragic and untimely death from a motorcycle crash at just 46 years old.

Art critic Jerry Saltz writes that Parrino "vividly demonstrates that no matter what you do to a canvas - slash, gouge, twist or mutilate it - you cannot actually kill it." (Jerry Saltz, "The Wild One," New York Magazine, November 2007) The finished product, however, is a canvas that has been cleanly, almost scientifically dismembered and reassembled in a formulaic mutilation.

Parrino's physical engagement with his canvas has deep roots in the history of art and recalls the action painting of Jackson Pollock and the Abstract Expressionists, the slashed canvases of Lucio Fontana, the stitched hides of Lee Bontecou, the scrunched surfaces of Piero Manzoni, the crunched automotive parts of John Chamberlain and the violent and dangerous lead-throwing of Richard Serra. Whereas Parrino's predecessors began their artistic process with a blank canvas or unused materials, Parrino treats his previously failed works as ready-made objects. He resuscitates these old pieces, transforms and re-contextualizes to an entirely new effect.