- 53
羅曼·歐帕卡
估價
300,000 - 400,000 GBP
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招標截止
描述
- Roman Opalka
- 《1965/1-∞, 局部143,362-185,085》
款識：畫家簽名並題款（內框）
蛋彩畫布
- 196 x 135公分
- 77 1/8 x 53 1/8英寸
來源
Galleria LP 220, Turin
Private Collection, Turin (acquired from the above in 1971)
Thence by descent to the present owner
Private Collection, Turin (acquired from the above in 1971)
Thence by descent to the present owner
展覽
Turin, Galleria LP 220, Descrizione del Mondo 1965-1- ∞, Opalka, 1971
Condition
Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is brighter with more contrast in the original.
Condition: This work is in very good condition. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals a few minor spots of retouching in places to the extreme outer edges and to three numbers towards the lower left corner.
"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."
"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
Well over forty years have passed since Roman Opalka decided to dedicate the rest of his life to recording the numbers one to infinity on canvas, an astounding enterprise which culminated only with the artist’s death in 2011. Examples of this extraordinary endeavour are today preserved in the collections of the Musuem of Modern Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The National Gallery, Berlin, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Japan: an indication of the deep respect felt amongst the international artistic community for Opalka’s utterly unique mission. 1965/1-∞, detail 143,362-185,085 is one of the earliest of the series ever to have been offered at auction, and, as such, offers a fascinating and rarely glimpsed insight into the first years of the artist’s numerical journey. If each painting is comprised of approximately 40,000 numbers this painting can be no later than the fifth painting in the series.
From 1965 onwards Opalka conceived his oeuvre as a single, continuous work, with the numbers on each canvas recorded in horizontal rows from the upper left and concluding at the lower right corner, and each successive painting beginning where the previous one left off. As the integers progress their chromatic intensity periodically wanes as Opalka's brush is depleted of paint before it is replenished to scribe initially brighter numbers. The repetition of this process leads to a glorious disposition of tone across the composition, while also recording the physical intensity of the artist’s act. The works are each labelled '1965/1 – ∞, detail' followed by the first and last number on the canvas, thereby marking the calendar year Opalka began his enterprise and, by signifying one to infinity, implicating the purely hypothetical nature of the Infinite. The artist's ambition was to reflect human consciousness in the way that it comprises, at each moment, the sum of all moments before. Experience and time are embedded in the core of these awe-inspiring works, which simultaneously bear witness to Opalka's concept, performance, and abstraction.
Opalka's canvases are all uniform in size based on the precise dimensions of the door to his former studio in Warsaw. Although in 1972 he introduced a tape recorder in order to speak each number in Polish as he painted it, the artist did not rely on any such aide-memoire for his earlier canvases. Also in that year Opalka began photographing himself before the canvas after each day's work: these portraits, which documented his own inexorable process of aging, became the means by which his ambitions of interminability were confronted by the inevitability of his own mortality. Although Opalka began by painting white numbers on a black background, in 1968 he changed to a grey background, a colour he believed to be more neutral, and in the early 1970s he decided to add one percent more white to this grey ground with each new 'Detail,’ the increasing whiteness of the paint being intended to signify the infinity that his numbers could never, ultimately, denote. Eventually Opalka's voice will be the only discernible witness to his project. Complex and profoundly subtle, 1965/1-∞, detail 143,362-185,085 is a fascinating insight into the artist’s work as he took the first steps on a journey in which he sought to achieve the truly extraordinary and unimaginable: the ultimate transcendence of infinity and, thereby, the path to immortality.
From 1965 onwards Opalka conceived his oeuvre as a single, continuous work, with the numbers on each canvas recorded in horizontal rows from the upper left and concluding at the lower right corner, and each successive painting beginning where the previous one left off. As the integers progress their chromatic intensity periodically wanes as Opalka's brush is depleted of paint before it is replenished to scribe initially brighter numbers. The repetition of this process leads to a glorious disposition of tone across the composition, while also recording the physical intensity of the artist’s act. The works are each labelled '1965/1 – ∞, detail' followed by the first and last number on the canvas, thereby marking the calendar year Opalka began his enterprise and, by signifying one to infinity, implicating the purely hypothetical nature of the Infinite. The artist's ambition was to reflect human consciousness in the way that it comprises, at each moment, the sum of all moments before. Experience and time are embedded in the core of these awe-inspiring works, which simultaneously bear witness to Opalka's concept, performance, and abstraction.
Opalka's canvases are all uniform in size based on the precise dimensions of the door to his former studio in Warsaw. Although in 1972 he introduced a tape recorder in order to speak each number in Polish as he painted it, the artist did not rely on any such aide-memoire for his earlier canvases. Also in that year Opalka began photographing himself before the canvas after each day's work: these portraits, which documented his own inexorable process of aging, became the means by which his ambitions of interminability were confronted by the inevitability of his own mortality. Although Opalka began by painting white numbers on a black background, in 1968 he changed to a grey background, a colour he believed to be more neutral, and in the early 1970s he decided to add one percent more white to this grey ground with each new 'Detail,’ the increasing whiteness of the paint being intended to signify the infinity that his numbers could never, ultimately, denote. Eventually Opalka's voice will be the only discernible witness to his project. Complex and profoundly subtle, 1965/1-∞, detail 143,362-185,085 is a fascinating insight into the artist’s work as he took the first steps on a journey in which he sought to achieve the truly extraordinary and unimaginable: the ultimate transcendence of infinity and, thereby, the path to immortality.