Head of Sale Tamila Kerimova in front of Gilbert & George Three Ways, 1984 at Phillips Berkeley Square, London

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Artsy: Can you start by describing your curatorial vision for the sale? What was critical to your vision as you began selecting works?

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Tamila Kerimova: Firstly, I try to bring to the market works by artists who are currently in demand, who have interesting exhibitions happening at the moment, whether commercial or institutional. For example, I am pleased to feature the set of drawings by Jorinde Voigt, whose show at Lisson Gallery in London this month has been a great success.

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Jorinde Voigt 8-er Deklination (Rhythmusmaschine / Raumabtastung), 2008

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With the Venice Biennale taking place this year, I was able to create a tight section of works by the artists that have created Pavilions for the respective countries – Mark Bradford for the USA, Xavier Veilhan for France, Carol Bove for Switzerland and Gal Weinstein for Israel. The auction also features late work by Sam Gilliam, whose new drape piece hangs above the entrance to the central pavilion in the Giardini.

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It is exciting to have works by these relevant artists hanging in our galleries at Berkeley Square.

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Maurizio Cattelan Untitled (skeleton vase), 2000

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Sterling Ruby Skull Drum I, 2008

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A: We notice sculpture and three-dimensional installation works make up a significant portion of the sale, with unique and rare editioned pieces by Tony Cragg, Marcel Broodthaers, Damien Hirst, Maurizio Cattelan, Sarah Lucas, Sterling Ruby, Julian Opie and Wade Guyton, just to name a few! Can you talk about the appeal of this grouping?

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TK: Sculpture is not only a very engaging medium, especially today when artists employ all sorts of unconventional materials, but also a beautiful way to make a space more engaging. Often, artists are really able to get outside of their comfort zones by experimenting with sculpture. For example, Sterling Ruby with the Skull Drum I has taken the context from his spray paintings and transferred it into a sculptural work. Many artists, such as Cattelan, Cragg, Hirst and Lucas have made sculpture the center of their practice. Cragg is currently having a major show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park — his biggest U.K. exhibition to date — that has received great reviews.

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Shara Hughes Basement, 2007

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Sam-Taylor Johnson Sustaining the Crisis, 1997

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A: What are other mediums or genres — for instance, abstract painting — that you consider important for collectors to pay attention to in this sale?

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TK: Figurative abstraction is currently getting a lot of attention from collectors and curators. Artists like Shara Hughes, Harold Ancart, Ella Kruglyanskaya, John Wesley, Torey Thornton, Jonas Wood, etc. are very much in demand, and I am pleased to be offering great examples in a range of media by these artists.

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In terms of other mediums, I am particularly excited to offer video works by Paul Pfeiffer, Markus Schinwald and Sam Taylor-Johnson that are quite rare to find on the secondary market.

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Tillmans' eye is exceptional, whether he depicts a still life or a corner of man’s ear — his images are beautiful snapshots of today's life, real and raw
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Wolfgang Tillmans Rylan & Paula Shooting, 1996

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A: The growing momentum for Wolfgang Tillmans has been palpable in 2017 with major shows at the Tate Modern and Fondation Beyeler. What is your take on the artist, and his 1996 photograph in your sale alongside his later, more experimental Freischwimmer series?

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TK: Tillmans' Freischwimmer series is his most commercially successful body of work to date. It is highly experimental, visually stunning, and in itself evokes the very popular style of Abstract Expressionism. We are pleased to be offering a beautiful example from this series in our Evening Sale.However, his oeuvre includes wide range of camera-based works that are incredibly poignant. As seen in the Tate Modern and Beyeler Foundation's shows this year, there is no question about the fact that Tillmans' eye is exceptional, whether he depicts a still life or a corner of man's ear — his images are beautiful snapshots of today's life, real and raw, and Rylan & Paula Shooting is a great example of this.

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A: Super-flat representational paintings, like Jonas Wood's basketball and Shara Hughes' basement, highlight the contemporary works executed in the last decade. Is this style a trend you anticipate continuing as we look ahead to the fall auction season?

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TK: Hughes, with her recent successful feature in the Whitney Biennial, and Wood, with Gagosian taking him on in 2015 and having just broken a $1 million USD mark at auction in New York this past May, have both seen great interest from established and young collectors. I do expect this trend to continue for them, and we should see great results this week and in the upcoming fall season.

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Martin Kippenberger Das Ende des Alphabets (Prototype for the Edition), 1989

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A: Can you walk us through some works of notable provenance or history?

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TK: A good example of interesting provenance is Martin Kippenerger's Das Ende des Alphabets that belonged to the artist's assistant, Ulrich Strothjohann. Strothjohann was considered an indispensable personality within Kippenberger's creative circle, sharing a group exhibition with the artist and fellow studio assistant Merlin Carpenter, Fallen and fallen lassen, at Galerie Bleich-Rossi in 1991. Stothjohann was often paid for his studio work in art by Kippenberger.

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Often instructed to make works and then conversely destroy them, the artistic partnership between Kippenberger and his studio assistants provided the creative hotbed in which Kippenberger grounded his diverse and explorative body of work. United by Kippenberger's characteristic critique of communication and his concern with paper, lettering and mixed media, this significant group of works demonstrates the broad range of materials and concepts employed in the artist's output.

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Explore the full range of over 200 lots in our London Day Sale, and register here to place your bids in advance of or during the live auction.

\n","publishDate","2017-06-25T21:41:11.000000Z","coverPosX","coverPosY","articleUrl","https://www.phillips.com/article/14091624/auction-highlights-our-london-day-sale-buying-guide-with-artsy","auctionEditorialID","editorialID","flocklerID",14091624,{"_4186":4205,"_4188":231,"_4189":4206,"_4155":4207,"_4192":4208,"_4194":4209,"_4196":1518,"_4197":473,"_4198":4210,"_464":229,"_4200":3284,"_4201":1768,"_4202":4211},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/p42-43_s600x0.jpg","Explore four thematically-linked works by artists — including Mark Bradford and Carol Bove — representing their home countries in the 57th edition of the Venice Biennale.","Artist Focus: Venice Biennale","

View of the canal, Venice © Photo: Kos Hermndy-Berencz / EyeEm, 2017

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In its 57th year and offering work from 120 artists worldwide, the Venice Biennale is arguably the most progressive event in the contemporary art calendar. With Viva Arte Viva as its resounding theme, Christine Macel, chief curator at Paris' Pompidou Centre, curates the 2017 Biennale.

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As part of our June Day Sale in London, we are pleased to present a selection of artists chosen to represent their countries in Venice. Although geographically distant – France, Israel, Switzerland and the United States – works by Xavier Veilhan, Gal Weinstein, Carol Bove and Mark Bradford are thematically linked, signifying a poignant reflection of our contemporary world.

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Mark Bradford Untitled, 2002

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Examining the city as a social laboratory of everyday practice, Bradford's Tomorrow is Another Day utilizes urban detritus, offering a decaying mural, gritty collages and fragmented images to communicate his concerns for the marginalized, encompassing both their vulnerability and resiliency to the unfulfilled American promise. Similarly, Bradford's Untitled, 2002, offers a celestial Minimalist grid recalling the energetic and often frenzied topography of the Los Angeles cityscape. This work delicately conveys a panoramic and ethereal landscape that further reveals the temporary condition of materials – the ephemerality of urban life.

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Says Bradford, "I'm pulling back a lot with color in general, because at the moment I'm very interested in the relationship to line, the relationship to shape – very formal things. I'm very interested in looking at structure right now instead of color."

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Gal Weinstein Petra, 2014

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Further exploring the relationship between art and reality, the Israeli Pavilion, Sun Stand Still by artist Gal Weinstein and curator Tami Katz-Freiman, critically addresses contemporary Isreali politics while examining mythological and romantic images embedded in Israel's collective memory. This very notion is echoed in Petra, 2011, which masterfully conveys the historical and archaeological city of Petra from wool and plywood.

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Says Weinstein, "I find inspiration in iconic images, I choose them because they have already lost their concrete experience and we experience them as a nostalgic memory, I like to recreate them physically to allow you to feel them again. I'm also inspired by carpet shops, routine life, humor and everyday materials."

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Carol Bove Ars Moriendo, 2004

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Carol Bove's Women in Venice delves into the political history of the Venice Biennale. The title of the exhibition alongside the royal blue cubist sculptures explicitly reference Alberto Giacometti, who continually declined the invitation to represent Switzerland at the Biennale. He instead considered himself to be an international artist. Furthermore, the sculptures relate to the physicality and materiality of Giacometti's creative output. In keeping with this profound connection to Modernism, Ars Moriendo, 2004, aesthetically recalls the work of John Chamberlain, Tony Smith, Alexander Liberman and Anthony Caro while espousing a contemporary and feminine aesthetic.

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Xavier Veilhan Debora, 2011

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In the same way, French artist Xavier Veilhan situates people and relationships at the core of his oeuvre. His exhibition at the Biennale, Studio Venezia, offers a fully functioning recording studio that invites professional musicians to collaborate, experiment and document. The studio reflects a comparable aesthetic to Debora, an abstract geometric female nude executed in 2001. With an inherently formalist preoccupation with materiality and form, Debora espouses a social commentary on perception, interaction and engagement in the digital age.

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She is a futuristic and post-human female nude. Stripped of superfluous detail, her stance is powerful, her poise elegant. Conveying strength, sensuality and grace, the exquisite sculpture, cast in resin and painted emerald green, empowers the female body while evocatively mimicking the aesthetic of digitally rendered images. As such, Debora critically addresses the ways in which digital technologies and the post-Internet age have altered our perception of the world.

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The form of Veilhan's multifaceted sculpture is reminiscent of Gerhard Richter's Ema (Nude on a Staircase), 1966 – a painting Richter made of his beloved wife; a painting of love and adoration. In a similar vein, Veilhan turns to friends and family as subjects for his sculptures, thus achieving a deeper engagement with his sitters. Furthermore Debora is indicative of German figurative sculpture of the 1980s, namely the masterful work of Georg Baselitz and Stephan Balkenhol.

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Over his extensive career, Veilhan's work has been exhibited at the Barbican, the Centre Pomidou and Versailles. His Studio Venzia from this year's Venice Biennale continues to position people, teamwork and collaboration at the heart of his creative output.

\n","2017-06-21T13:04:38.000000Z","https://www.phillips.com/article/13917302/artist-focus-venice-biennale",13917302,{"_4186":4213,"_4188":231,"_4189":4214,"_4155":4215,"_4192":4216,"_4194":4217,"_4196":1518,"_4197":473,"_4198":4218,"_464":385,"_4200":1561,"_4201":1785,"_4202":4219},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/136_002--4atennqbmr_s600x0.jpg","A series of hypnotic works on offer celebrates the ultimate champion of Op Art and his masterful marriage of science's rigidity and nature's spontaneity.","Artist Focus: Victor Vasarely","

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Celebrated champion of Op Art, Victor Vasarely's oeuvre, like his individual works, presents a varied series of tessellated optical effects through the artist's unique lens. Experimenting with form and color, Vasarely's mastery of composition rhythmically creates a hypnotic narrative throughout his career.

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Networks, webs and weaves serve as the artist's coordinates of fascination, which in turn connect the following selection of works from our London Day Sale, produced from 1972 to 1990. This cross-section of the artist's later work demonstrates the consistency and conviction of his characteristic geometric abstraction and masterful abstract trompe l'oeil. Triggering dynamic optical phenomena, each work creates movement and engages the active participation of the onlooker. Attempting to overcome individualistic painting and an artist's personal touch, Vasarely rejected the aura of the original work from Walter Benjamin's famous 1936 essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

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Favoring reproducible models, Vasarely's tessellating images utilize serial procedures and break through constrictions, challenging the existence of Benjamin's sensory perspective, the 'aura', when the uniqueness of a work is stripped away.

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Vasarely's mastery of composition rhythmically creates a hypnotic narrative throughout his career.
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Victor Vasarely Sans titre, circa 1987

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The playful harlequin centered in Vasarely's monumental Sans titre, circa 1987, appears to be leaping from the canvas, cutting through the carefully constructed three-dimensional space. Looking to escape from the material confines of the plane, the harlequin toys with the composition and embodies the artist's continuous experimentation with spatial limitations. Vasarely's use of color immerses the figure with pictorial energy and further propels it towards the spectator, commanding his complete concentration while maintaining the artist's characteristic geometry. Exploring the relationship between space, the spectator and his surroundings, Vasarely's concern with verticality and the artistic plane is evident.

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Victor Vasarely Sakk, 1988

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Further drawing on the interplay between the viewer and the canvas, Sakk, with its graduating color, draws the viewer towards the vortex of the piece. The dizzying illusion, a cosmic dream, carefully constructed against the gridlines of the work, sets the scene for a characteristic combination of optics and cybernetics. Vasarely skillfully breaks down the barriers between technology and art, the exact progression of the shapes further displaying the underlying scientific and theoretical foundation of the artist's plastic experimentations. The precision of the rectangles, presented amidst the interplay of light and shadow, fills the canvas with three-dimensionality, encompassing the viewer in the characteristic components of Vasarely's masterful illusionary oeuvre.

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Victor Vasarely Dell-Piros, 1975

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When viewing Vasarely's Dell-Piros, executed in 1975, we are immediately plunged into the artist's sublime geometric cosmos. Through spherical distortions in his grid-like composition, the picture plane appears to warp, while a central electrifying form appears pronounced. Gray and red tonal variations seem to effervesce, stellar-like, while Vasarely's formal intricacies create a stratospheric viewpoint. Exploring the distortion of color and form in his seminal Vega series, Vasarely's weaved geometric variations seem to reference the void of space. Subsuming the viewer like a vortex, areas of the work seem to both recede and push out simultaneously. By imbuing a sense of vertigo, Dell-Piros transports us to an otherworldly universe through the artist's meticulous geometric precision and careful equilibrium of colour and light.

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Victor Vasarely Tridim-Kek, 1972

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Crystalline and coursing with vital energy, Vasarely's 1972 work, Tridim-Kek, is exemplary of the artist's persistent exploration of color and form to create the appearance of three-dimensionality. Combining the techniques developed in his progressive Alphabet Plastique and 1969 Gestalt series, Tridim-Kek demonstrates the artist's preoccupation with manipulating small units of color, encased in geometric forms, which are repeated and contrasted to create a snake-like movement throughout the work. Deep cobalt, sapphire and azure blues provide a patchwork of tonal relationships, provoking the viewer's eye to wander over the rhythmic motion of the central form. Contrasting highlights of triangles, diamonds and parallelograms offer structural harmony to the suspended celestial form.

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Conveying the geometric composition of a snowflake, in Tridim-Kek Vasarely seeks to channel both the rigidity of science with the spontaneity of nature to achieve formal and tonal harmony.

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120

SoiL Thornton

Thornberry View Wild and Distorted But Clearer In Some Respects

Full-Cataloguing

SoiL Thornton