Albert Oehlen, DIE PFEIFENDEN VON (THE WHISTLERS OF).
Estimate: HK$ 14,000,000 — 24,000,000
A vivid, electrifying profusion of psychedelic color, form and gesture, Albert Oehlen’s Die Pfeifenden von (The Whistlers of) is a thrillingly robust work. Across the energetic panorama, nomadic figurative shapes are swept and tossed by tidal currents of gestural abstraction: an overturned teapot, the visage of a wax doll, a femur, gloved hands. Executed in 2001, the painting typifies Oehlen’s vital push-pull dynamic of figuration versus abstraction. Pushing his medium past its historical connotations to its breaking point, Oehlen challenges, examines, and revitalizes painting in a post-painting world.