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Sunday, October 22, 2023

Great Criticism - Coca Cola (Green), 2006 by Wang Guangyi

 

Great Criticism - Coca Cola (Green), 2006; Lithograph in colors on wove paper; Signed Wang Guangyi in Chinese in pencil lower right and numbered 144/199 in pencil lower left; Published by Idem, Paris; Size - Sheet 35 x 30"; Unframed.


"... the formation of the Great Criticism series was somehow accidental as well. Despite the poor artistic qualities of propaganda images made by amateur painters during the cultural revolution, I used to find in them a unique kind of power which I wished to exploit in my works. I enlarged and copied one of those image of workers, peasants and soldiers onto a canvas, setting it in the corner, and had no idea how to deal with it. Several days later, I happened to have a chance to drink a can of Coke. This was in those days when lots of Western consumer products (such as Coca-Cola and Marlboro cigarettes) had just entered China, but Coke was still a "luxurious" drink. Incidentally, I set the Coke can on the ground, suddenly coming up with some interesting ideas." - Wang Guangyi
 
Wang Guangyi (b. 1957) is a Chinese artist recognized as a leader of the new art movement that started in China after 1989. Great Criticism is his most famous series of works that integrated propaganda images of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) with contemporary logos from Western advertisements. Guangyi began this series in 1990 and ended it in 2007 when he became convinced that its international success would affect the original meaning of the works, in particular that the political and commercial propaganda images are just different forms of brainwashing.
 

Close up of the Wang Guangyi in Chinese signature.


Close up of the edition number.
 
Great Criticism - Coca Cola (Green), 2006 is a great example of Wang Guangyi's Great Criticism series and features three 'heroes' of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in red and yellow. The center male farmer is clutching a hammer and sickle (emblems of the Chinese Communist Party which together symbolize the working tools of workers and farmers) in his right hand. The left female worker and the right military male figure are both holding "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung" commonly referred to as the "Little Red Book." At the top of the work is the western advertising logo of Coca-Cola and the figures and logo are set on a green background. The entire composition is stamped with two repeating, randomly placed numbers. During the Cultural Revolution, two license numbers were required for the production of any image for public consumption, one to produce the image and another to distribute it. The numbers reference the extreme restrictions on the creative process during Guangyi's early artistic career. The word NO with the universal recycling symbol is the artist's statement that both images are forms of propaganda that should not continue to be utilized and recycled indefinitely.
 

Close up of the publisher Idem Paris stamp.

The discussion of contemporary Chinese art must include Li Xianting, the most renowned art critic in China. Xianting graduated from the Chinese Painting Department, Central Academy of Fine Art in 1978 and became the editor of Meishu (Fine Art Magazine) until 1983 and from 1985-89 he was the editor of the China Fine Art Newspaper. He is currently based in Beijing and acts as an independent critic and curator. In the late seventies and eighties he was the major force in introducing and advocating the burgeoning avant-garde art in China that was starting to embark on economic reformation. Xianting coined the terms "Cynical Realism" and "Political Pop" which formed the dominate schools of the Chinese avant-garde. Many of the artists that he discovered and promoted have become leading figures and have garnished great international attention, such as Wang Guangyi and Yue Minjun. Li Xianting writing about the emergence of Political Pop and Cynical Realism stated:
 
"... both (movements were) interested in the dissolution of certain systems of meaning... (and) adopt a comical approach... With a revolutionary momentum resembling that of the '85 New Wave, these artists raised the flag of Western deconstruction and rallied under slogans such as 'purging humanist enthusiasm'... They stripped the lofty veil off the metaphysical '85 New Wave and attempted to give rise to a new movement through the 'materiality and immediacy' of Pop Art. -
("Political Pop and a Deconstructivist Attempt," 1992, Li Xianting, published in MoMA Primary Documents: Contemporary Chinese Art, Durham, NC, 2010, p. 178.)

The Political Pop art movement that emerged in China in the 1980s, combined western pop art with socialist realism in order to create art that questioned the political and social climate of a rapidly changing China. The movement also was a creative means by artists to come to terms with the Cultural Revolution. Great Criticism - Coca Cola (Green), 2006 is an excellent example of Wang Guangyi at his best and would be a wonderful addition to any modern art collection!

#WangGuangyi #Guangyi #PoliticalPop #PopArt #LiXianting #GreatCriticism #Cocacola #CynicalRealism #Chineseart #signedandnumbered #signed #artist #China #CulturalRevolution #artwork #untitledartgallery #art #artist #Chineseavantgarde #avantgarde

Untitled (Smile-ism No. 1), 2006 by Yue Minjun

 

Untitled (Smile-ism No. 1), 2006; Lithograph in colors on wove paper; Signed Yue Minjun in pencil lower right and numbered 22/45 in pencil lower left; Published by Art Issue Editions, New York; Size - Sheet 43 x 31 1/2"; Unframed.


“A smile doesn’t necessarily mean happiness; it could be something else.” - Yue Minjun
 
Yue Minjun (b. 1962) is a Chinese artist based in Beijing China and is best known for his works that depict himself in various settings, eyes tightly shut, and frozen in smiling laughter. He has worked in a variety of media including oil painting, sculpture, watercolor, and prints. Minjun is often classified as part of the Chinese Cynical Realist art movement developed in 1989, although he rejects the label. “I’m actually trying to make sense of the world,” he said. “There’s nothing cynical or absurd in what I do.” He holds the record auction price for a contemporary Chinese painting at $5.9 million, when his painting “Execution” (1995) sold at Sotheby's London in 2007.

Yue Minjun studied oil painting at the Hebei Normal University and graduated in 1989. In June of that year China was rocked by student-led demonstrations and their suppression on Tiananmen Square. “My mood changed at that time,” he said. “I was very down. I realized the gap between reality and the ideal, and I wanted to create my own artistic definition, whereby there could be a meeting with social life and the social environment. The first step,” he added, “was to create a style to express my feelings accurately, starting with something that I knew really well —myself.” 


 Close up of the Yue Minjun pencil signature.

Minjun's now iconic laugh was inspired by a painting that he saw by another Chinese artist, Geng Jianyi, in which a smile is deformed to mean the opposite of what it normally means. “In China there’s a long history of the smile,” Mr. Yue said. “There is the Maitreya Buddha who can tell the future and whose facial expression is a laugh. Normally there’s an inscription saying that you should be optimistic and laugh in the face of reality." 

"So I developed this painting where you see someone laughing,” Yui said. “At first you think he’s happy, but when you look more carefully, there’s something else there. There were also paintings during the Cultural Revolution period, those Soviet-style posters showing happy people laughing,” he continued. “But what’s interesting is that normally what you see in those posters is the opposite of reality.” Yue made the decision to paint himself as the smiling figure giving him a greater margin for freedom of expression. “I’m not laughing at anybody else, because once you laugh at others, you’ll run into trouble, and can create obstacles,” he said. “This is the way to do it if you want to make a parody of the things that are behind the image,” he stated.


Close up of the edition number.

The discussion of contemporary Chinese art must include Li Xianting, the most renowned art critic in China. Xianting graduated from the Chinese Painting Department, Central Academy of Fine Art in 1978 and became the editor of Meishu (Fine Art Magazine) until 1983 and from 1985-89 he was the editor of the China Fine Art Newspaper. He is currently based in Beijing and acts as an independent critic and curator. In the late seventies and eighties he was the major force in introducing and advocating the burgeoning avant-garde art in China that was starting to embark on economic reformation. Xianting coined the terms "Cynical Realism" and "Political Pop" which formed the dominate schools of the Chinese avant-garde. Many of the artists that he discovered and promoted have become leading figures and have garnished great international attention, such as Wang Guangyi and Yue Minjun. Li Xianting writing about the emergence of Political Pop and Cynical Realism stated:
 
"... both (movements were) interested in the dissolution of certain systems of meaning... (and) adopt a comical approach... With a revolutionary momentum resembling that of the '85 New Wave, these artists raised the flag of Western deconstruction and rallied under slogans such as 'purging humanist enthusiasm'... They stripped the lofty veil off the metaphysical '85 New Wave and attempted to give rise to a new movement through the 'materiality and immediacy' of Pop Art. -
("Political Pop and a Deconstructivist Attempt," 1992, Li Xianting, published in MoMA Primary Documents: Contemporary Chinese Art, Durham, NC 2010, p. 178.)

The Cynical Realism art movement that emerged in China began in Beijing in the 1990s, and has become one of the most popular Chinese contemporary art movements in mainland China. The movement arose as Chinese artists broke away from the collective mindset of the Cultural Revolution in the pursuit of individual expression. The resulting works of art focus on social and political issues that are transformed using humor. There is also a post-ironic take on the transition that Chinese society has undergone from Communism through industrialization and modernity.

Untitled (Smile-ism No. 1), 2006 is an excellent example of Yue Minjun at his best. The Smile-sim series is a group of 28 large lithographs that feature single or multiple images of the eyes closed smiling Yue Minjun set in different poses and on different backgrounds. Untitled (Smile-ism No. 1) features the classic eyes closed mouth open smiling image of the artist's face over another image of him, but this time his own hands are covering his eyes. This contemporary Chinese work would be a wonderful addition to any modern art collection!
 
#YueMinjun #Minjun #CynicalRealism #Realism #LiXianting #Smile-ism #Smileism #PoliticalPop #Chineseart #signedandnumbered #signed #artist #China #CulturalRevolution #artwork #untitledartgallery #art #artist #Chineseavantgarde #avantgarde

Friday, March 24, 2023

I-S LXXa (Homage to the Square) by Josef Albers, 1970

I-S LXXb (Homage to the Square), 1970; Serigraph on German etching paper; Titled and numbered 56/125 in pencil lower left; Signed and dated '70 in pencil lower right; Published by Ives-Sillman, Inc., New Haven; Blind stamped with publisher's mark lower right; Image size - 21 x 21", Frame 21 1/4 x 21 1/4"; Framed using a silver metal frame and UV conservation clear glass.


"Every perception of color is an illusion, we do not see colors as they really are. In our perception they alter on another." - Joseph Albers
  
Josef Albers (1888-1976) was a German born artist and educator and the first living artist to be given a solo show at both the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY. He taught at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and was the head of the Yale University's Department of Design. Josef Albers was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and was primarily recognized for with exploration of color.

In 1949, Josef Albers wrote the definitive text on color theory, "Interaction of Color," and soon began work on a series of colored squares and rectangles that was to dominate his work. The series which would be called "Homage to the Square" explored the idea of color as an illusion and dependent upon context. "We do not see colours as they really are, in our perception they alter one another," he wrote. Although he began his color experiments with paint, he was to move onto the flat printing process, particularly the screen-print. The technique was perfectly suited for his needs because of the consistent application of the color, as well as the ease of use and speed in which combinations could be achieved.

I-S LXXb (Homage to the Square), 1970 is from a series of prints that were published by by Ives-Sillman, Inc., New Haven. The prints were designated 'I-S" to represent Ives Sillman and were part of an open-ended series that were lettered 'a', 'b', 'c', etc. Both of the I-S LXXa and I-S LXXb were published on the occasion of Albers 80th birthday and were the first pairs of prints which were created to commemorate his birthday from 1970-1973. The others were LXXIa and b, LXXIIa and b, and LXXIIIa and b.

I-S LXXb (Homage to the Square), 1970 is an excellent example of Josef Albers at his best! The work is composed of three concentric off set squares in varying light values of yellow, all set on the white ground of a sheet of German etching paper. I perfect example of Josef Albers at his best, and a wonderful addition to any modern art collection.
 
#JosefAlbers #Albers #ColorTheory #Colour #BlackMountainCollege #Bauhaus #abstractart #serigraph #colorfield #signedandnumbered #signed #IvesSillman #postpainterlyabstraction #abstraction #ISLXXb #untitledartgallery #art #artist #modernart #HomagetotheSquare

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

La Primavera (Spring), 1988 by Sam Francis

 

La Primavera (Spring), 1988; Etching and aquatint in colors on Fabriano paper; signed in pencil and numbered VII/X; Blindstamps of the publisher/printer, 2RC Edizioni d'Arte/Vigna Antoniniana Stamperia d'Arte, Rome; Size - 46 x 95", Frame 57 x 106"; Catalog Raisonne: Lembark I.98, SFE-070RC;  Framed with a white high gloss wood frame, linen liner and UV plexiglass.


"I prefer to think of colours in relationships to each other, rather than just one colour at a time." - Sam Francis

Sam Francis (1923-1994) was an American painter and printmaker, most known for his large scale works indicative of abstract expressionism action painting. Francis took up painting in 1944 as a result of a spinal injury that he incurred during the Second World War. He gave up his studies of Botany, Medicine and Psychology and instead went to study art at the University of California, Berkley where he earned a BA and MA. He would then travel and paint for years in Paris, south of France, Tokyo, Mexico City, Bern, and New York. Francis's work, although referencing abstract expressionism, is very much associated with his California environment as related to space, color, and light. He developed a style that involved the use of multifaceted brushwork, often dominated by cell-like dripping forms.
 
His work hangs in the world's greatest museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Norton Simon Museum, The Kunstmuseum, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Centre Pompidou-Musee National d'Art Moderne
 
In the 1980's Sam Francis partnered with Valter and Eleonora Rossi of the Italian print workshop 2RC. The Rossis had just moved to New York City and wanted to continue their work printing very large scale intaglio prints. An intaglio print is made on a copper plate and utilizes aquatint that involves the application of a fine layer of resin dust that is evenly applied to the surface of the plate. It is then heated so that each particle crystallizes and is firmly adhered. Francis would then paint, with a sugar lift solution, the plate. The finished image was dipped into an acid bath and areas where the plate was exposed, ie not painted, was bitten by the acid. The resulting etched patterns could now hold ink and members of the printing company, working very quickly so that the ink would not dry, would work ink into the large plate. The entire plate was then covered with a sheet of dampened paper and run through the press under pressure in order to pull an impression. For the Francis prints, the final image is composed of overprinting of four different plates, printed in ten color and run through the press four times. The result is an extraordinary technical achievement and resulted in the suite of four large scale prints collectively titled "The Five Seasons." Each of the four prints was composed from the same set of plates, but inked in different color combinations. The four prints in the suite are: La Primavera, La Primavera Fredda, La Notte, and Pioggia d'Oro.

"La Primavera (Spring)," 1988 is an example of Sam Francis at the height of his prowess. The framed work is an impressive 57 x 106 inches and is one of the largest intaglio prints ever realized. The structure is a loose latticework of light green cells which overlays a cacophony of splatters and drips of paint whose colors reference the emergence of plants and flowers in a garden. An absolutely stunning work that would be the highlight for any modern art collection!
 
#SamFrancis #Francis #TheFiveSeasons #Spring #LaPrimavera #LaPrimaveraFredda #LaNotte #abstractart #PioggiadOro #abstractexpressionism #intaglio #aquatint #signedandnumbered #signed #EleonoraRossi #postpainterlyabstraction #abstraction #2RC #untitledartgallery #art #artist #modernart #ValterRossi

Friday, March 10, 2023

Joseph (From Men in the Cities), 2000 by Robert Longo

Joseph (From Men in the Cities), 2000; Lithograph on Arches Cover Paper; Signed and dated in pencil lower right, Numbered 36/50 in pencil lower left; Published by Wolfryd-Selway Fine Art, West Hollywood; Size - Sheet 70 x 40", Frame 75 3/4 x 45 3/4"; Framed floated on white linen with a black wood exterior frame and plexiglass.


"If you're fortunate enough with your history, like withe Men in the Cities, your work becomes so absorbed in culture that the authorship of it doesn't exist anymore." - Robert Longo

Robert Longo (b. 1953) is an American artist, filmmaker, photographer, and musician. He is most known for his large-scale, hyper-realistic charcoal portraits that reference power, authority, and social unrest. In the early 1980's he earned acclaim for his “Men in the Cities” series, which feature business attire subjects posed in uncanny contortions. Since then, he has depicted scenes from the Occupy Wall Street movement, the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, Black Lives Matter protests, and refugee migrations. A member of the loose cohort of Pictures Generation artists, who repurpose mass media images in their artwork, Longo draws inspiration from photographs and art historical reference material. He often uses a black and white or a monochromatic palette, carefully building his charcoal surfaces to create a sense of depth and contrast. He has exhibited at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and his work hangs in the world's greatest art museums
 

 Close up of the signature and date.

Robert Longo's "Men in the Cities" series is composed of writhing dancing figures in space. For the series, Longo photographed his friends lurching backward, collapsing forward, or sprawled on an invisible pavement. After enlarging the pictures using a projector, Longo and his assistant drew them in sizes ranging from three-quarter scale to larger than life-size. In the process, the poses were often dramatized and their attire was converted into a black-and-white business formal. The idea for this work came, in 1975, from a still image in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film The American Soldier. According to art critic Los Angeles Times writer William Wilson, the pictures recall nothing so much as the final scene in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. About four years passed before Longo turned the vision of a man shot in the back into a monumental series of drawings. 


Close up of the edition number.
 

 Framed Joseph (From Men in the Cities), 2000 by Robert Longo

"Joseph" is a large scale work by Robert Longo, with the sheet size being a huge seventy inches tall. The image shows a young man whose left leg has given way, as his knee buckles causing his left foot to lift and twist. Joseph's left shoulder is thrust back from his body, as is his left arm. His right shoulder and arm are in front of him and blocked by his body from the viewer. The movement is sudden and impactful, as exemplified by his black neck tie flailing in the air above him. Joseph's head is tilted back further conveying a very violent and unnatural human pose being caused by an unknown force. An absolutely stunning work by Robert Longo and a major addition to any art collection!

"You know. I think I hope I’m trying to tell the truth, and in that sense stylistically I’ve tried to avoid a style that is recognizable as a kind of like…that what Men in the Cities encapsulated. And I think that like, all these black and white drawings are basically reflective of the landscape of the world we live in. I think that my black and white drawings are… They exist somewhere between traditional representation and modernist abstraction—it’s almost like I translate photographs or something. I mean, we still see the world in photographs, in that sense. And I think black and white is actually highly abstract in that sense." - Robert Longo

#Robert Longo #Longo #Joseph #Drawing #PicturesGeneration #Realism #MenintheCities #lithograph #untitledartgallery #art #artist #modernart #figuerism #hyperrealism

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Los Alamitos, from Race Track Series, 1972 by Frank Stella

Los Alamitos, from Race Track Series, 1972; Screenprint on Gemini Rag Board; Numbered 12/75, signed Frank Stella and dated 72 in pencil lower right; Published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, with their blindstamp and inkstamp verso; Catalog Raisonne: Axsom 74, Gemini 378; Size - Image 15 x 75 1/4", Sheet 20 1/4 x 80", Frame 20 1/2 x 80 1/2"; Framed floated with a silver metal exterior frame and plexiglass.


"I always get into arguments with people who want to retain the old values in painting - the humanistic values that they... find on the canvas. If you pin them down, they always end up asserting that there is something there besides the paint on the canvas. My painting is based on the fact that only what can be seen there is there... What you see is what you get." - Frank Stella

Frank Stella (b. 1936) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, most known for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. In the late 1950's and 1960's he began to produce works which emphasized the picture-as-object, rather than the picture as a representation of the physical or emotional. The year 1959 saw the creation of the Black Paintings, a group of paintings composed of bands of black paint separated by very thin pinstripes of unpainted canvas. In 1961 he married Barbara Rose, who later be recognized as one of the most well known and respected art critics and who undoubtedly had a major influence on the artist. It was during this time that Stella continued to work within the idea that a picture was "a flat surface with paint on it, nothing more." 
 

 Close up of the edition number, signature, and date.
 
Stella generally works in series, in that the emerging works have a common theme, composition, and according to him; have the features of "line, plane, volume, and point within space." His famous quote regarding his work is, "what you see is what you see." Stella currently lives and works in New York City.

Frank Stella's race track series from 1972 consists of three horizontal prints, each named after a horse racing track in California or Mexico. Comparing horse racing to the art world he says, "Racing is so much nicer than the art world, where everything is driven by opinion. At the racetrack, it doesn't matter what people think. At the end of the race, one horse crosses the finish line first, and that horse is the best horse. It's a lot simpler." 

The concentric ellipse shaped color forms of the race track series resemble an simplified aerial view of race tracks. The first print in the series is "Del Mar," named after the racetrack in San Diego, CA. The light color values and hues are reminiscent of the the arid environment and coastal beach climate of the classic southern California way of life. "Los Alamitos," named after the racetrack in Orange County is a picture composed of shifts in color and light values. The oblong ellipses generate a pleasant and calming composition. The pale violet is surrounded by light values of blue and green and the black middle ellipse allows for the colors to pulse in a calming resonating vibrancy. The last in the series is "Agua Caliente," named for the dog racing track in Agua Caliente Casino and Resort in Mexico. The work is composed of only three ellipses and is the most bold of the grouping. An optical effect is created with a shade of green in the center surrounded by complimentary red color values. All three prints are large in size, being eighty inches long. It is this large format that allows for the works to be read as both important and to have their immediate presence further enhanced.


Close up of the Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles blindstamp and inkstamp verso.

"I feel that what keeps the push-pull from defeating the picture, what I think keeps it on the surface, is the feeling that the colors move, they follow the bands, they have a sense of direction. It's the directional sense of color, I think that holds the surface of the painting, I wanted something that was direct - right to your eye... something you didn't have to look around - you got the whole thing right away." - Frank Stella

#FrankStella #Stella #DelMar #LosAlamitos #abstractart #abstractexpressionism #AguaCaliente #RaceTrackSeries #screenprint #serigraph #ULAE #GeminiGEL #minimalism #postpainterlyabstraction #abstraction #BarbaraRose #untitledartgallery #art #artist #modernart

Friday, February 10, 2023

Special Assortment, 2004 by Peter Anton


Special Assortment, 2004; Mixed media sculpture with resin and acrylic; Titled, “Special Assortment," dated © 2004, and signed Peter Anton in black marker verso; Size -  Box: 21 1/2 x 15 x 4 1/4".

To purchase this work or to visit the Art Gallery, CLICK HERE!

"I like to create art that can lure, charm, tease, disarm, and surprise... I have an innate reverence for the things we eat... Food brings people together and there is no better way to celebrate life... The sensual nature of the works stimulates basic human needs and desires that generate cravings and passion." 
- Peter Anton
 
Using food as subject matter is not a new idea; from the wonderfully painted 17th century food still life pictures to the POP and photorealistic artists of the 1960's, food has been front and center on the canvas. Sweets and desserts were wonderfully rendered by Wayne Thiebaud by building up the paint when making his cake paintings, in order to portray the look of real icing. Claus Oldenburg is famous for his draftsman and sculpting skills that are used to portray food as works of art. His sculptures are loose interpretations with paint splatters and spills that reinforce the hand of the artist.

With this work, Peter Anton has chosen as his subject matter the "Sweetheart Sampler," an instantly recognizable chocolate assortment contained in a heart shaped box and created as a photorealistic wall hanging sculpture. One of the most interesting aspects of his work is the size and therefore the scale to the viewer. The box is a whopping 21 1/2 x 15 x 4 1/4" and individual chocolates are about 5" each. By placing the box not on a table but on the wall, he emphasizes the idea of presentation and therefore submits the art to the viewer. This increase in size as well as the realistic interpretation, makes the viewer just want to take a bite!


Side View of "Special Assortment"

Anton's chocolate boxes are known for having a bitten cherry cordial and an empty paper wrapper. These two features further conveys to the viewer that this box is for eating and not just for looking. This box also contains the green foil covered chocolate, the milk chocolate almond topped square, the milk truffle topped with lemon curd and the orange swirl. Details such as powder sugar hanging onto the sides of the box, the gooey cherry cordial center oozing out of the half eaten piece, and the squished in and tasted blue cream truffle on the left; just makes our mouth water!