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Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art Online Including Works by Damien Hirst, Franz West and Wade Guyton Under £50,000

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Sotheby's Contemporary Art Online Sale includes excellent works spanning from the post-war period to the present, including pieces by distinguished artists such as Lucio Fontana, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Wade Guyton, and Franz West. With pre-sale estimates starting at £500, the sale offers a wonderful opportunity to acquire works at an accessible price point. The works from this auction will be available for view in our New Bond Street galleries.

Past Auction
Contemporary Art Online
4–12 April 2019 | 3:00 PM BST | London

Contemporary Art Online Including Works by Damien Hirst, Franz West and Wade Guyton Under £50,000

  • Franz West, Pickelnick, 2005.
    Estimate £50,000-70,000.
    Skilfully manipulating found images from mass media and advertising, West’s collages, like much of his artistic output, are at once light-hearted to the point of absurdity and deeply philosophical. In Pickelnick, West tackles the moment of the fall of man, Adam and Eve in the lush green background of the Garden of Eden. The couple, clad only in sandals, turn their backs to the viewer, the woman gazes towards a disproportionally large, floating apple, while the male figure meanders into a dark green abyss marked only by an overturned motorcycle.
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  • Damien Hirst, Beautiful Big Whopper Hooters Bang Bang Whoop Whoop Lights on Green Go Go Go Ye Ha Ye Ha, 2010.
    Estimate £4,000-6,000.
    In Damien Hirst’s Spin Paintings colour, chance and kineticism powerfully defy artistic convention. In the present work, an explosion of colour reverberates across the sheet, a celebration of the unpredictable nature of the artist’s working process in this revered series.
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  • Louise Lawler, Carpeaux (Musée D’Orsay), 1988.
    Estimate £15,000-20,000.
    Carpeaux (Musée D’Orsay) epitomises the compositional and conceptual awareness that characterises Louise Lawler’s artistic output. In the present work, the highly structured composition prioritises the ‘Carpeaux’ label rather than the artwork itself, which appears cropped. In this way, Carpeaux (Musée D’Orsay) lays bare the systems behind the presentation and consumption of artworks, themes at the core of the artist’s oeuvre.
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  • Günther Förg, Ohne Titel (Three works).
    Estimate £8,000-12,000.
    i. signed and dated 86 and 23/11/86/ 1
    ii. signed and dated 86 and 23 11 4
    iii. signed and dated 86 and 23 11 3

    Rendered on an intimate scale, densely painted layers form a highly textured, though seemingly weightless surface. These three works epitomise Gunther Forg’s career long exploration into colour and composition. With influences ranging from the geometry of Piet Mondrain and Robert Ryman to the materiality of Frank Stella and Richard Serra, these works perfectly encapsulate the artist’s idiosyncratic visual language.
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  • Lucio Fontana, Studi per Concetto Spaziale.
    Estimate £4,000-6,000.
    This early work on paper offers a rare insight into the Italian master, Lucio Fontana’s, working process. Executed in 1952, this study exemplifies the gesture at the heart of the artist’s iconic and celebrated Concetto Spaziale series. Lyrical, short sharp marks populate this study, foreshadowing Fontana’s revered celestial and spiritual explorations in his slashed and punctured canvases of the 1960s.
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  • Haim Steinbach, Tailored Cut, 1985.
    Estimate £15,000-20,000.
    Steinbach’s anthropological artistic practice centres on concepts of collecting, display and framing devices, which he explores through his poetic organisation of found objects. His artistic practice plays with meaning and association to challenge conventional notions of the status of the art object, and reposition the artist as collector and as curator.
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  • Wade Guyton, Untitled, 2017.
    Estimate £4,000-6,000.
    In 2017, working with May Editions, Wade Guyton printed the front page of The New York Times on May’s letterheaded paper. The edition was printed in a single day, with the printed image evolving as the headlines, layout and timestamp of the website changed. Untitled speaks to Guyton’s fascination with digital technologies and the printed image, resonating with his celebration of the chance nature and unpredictability of images produced through these technologies.
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  • Maria Lai, Untitled, 1978.
    Estimate £12,000-18,000.
    Throughout her career Maria Lai’s practice remained centred on the customs and histories of her home town in Sardinia. Her work explores literature, poetry, and perhaps most importantly oral histories of female voices, placing traditionally feminine craft at the forefront of her practice. In Untitled sewn black threads dart delicately across a sheet of photocopy paper, forming indecipherably lines of text mimicking a formal letter. Loose threads drape across the sheet, calling attention to the illegibility of the work, epitomising the ‘asemantic’ nature of Lai’s practice.
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  • L19620_CTP_8.jpg
    Kris Martin’ Lost Wax, 2013.
    Estimate £4,000-6,000.
    Kris Martin’s Lost Wax series exemplifies not only his career long exploration into themes of presence and absence, time, history and transition, but also his preoccupation with matters of materiality. In Lost Wax Martin employs the ancient technique of lost wax casting applied to the hollow husks of honey combs. The focus is transformation, the transformative potential of the technique and the inherent transformative power of nature. The result offers an object of fragility and ephemerality on an intimate scale contained within its sturdy bronze frame.
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  • Art & Language, Untitled, 1997.
    Estimate £1,000-1,500.
    Upon first glance, Untitled has the appearance of a monochrome painting, though on closer inspection the uniform surface is disrupted by two pages of text in the form of an open book, just visible behind a thick sheet of plexiglass. Untitled is a superb example of Art & Language’s highly conceptual practice, which refuses to separate the role of the artist and the writer. As in much of their artistic output, in Untitled Art & Language rejects any sign of an individual artist’s hand, prioritising instead language, concept and artistic intent.
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