Christopher Wool - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale New York Sunday, May 8, 2016 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens
    Private Collection
    Christie's, London, February 14, 2014, lot 134
    Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

  • Catalogue Essay

    Christopher Wool’s defining use of the screenprint may be second only to that of Andy Warhol as the singular characteristic of his highly original and provocative practice. Exemplified by both his early stenciled text works and later works that employ screens of prior paintings, the screenprint emerged as both the means and the end to Wool’s investigation of painting. Addition and erasure, mark-making, blurring and wiping, building up and breaking down all represent the formal qualities associated with painting and each of which is further embodied and immortalized in the process of screenprinting.

    Untitled from 2006 is a stunning work on paper that Wool made by arranging multiple screens from prior works into a new and unique composition. The originals are obscured and also simplified into a new synthesis in this complex process of self-appropriation and repetition. As Francisco Camps Ortiz astutely notes, the massive influx of written, spoken and visual media has become so overwhelming that the individual has difficulty deciphering one message from another. Wool’s works, such as the present lot, achieve a similar obfuscating effect, “with his reproductions containing erased or semi-erased messages[…] acquiring a different, more symbolic, more subjective power. From this artistic gesture we gather that nowadays there are certain deficiencies in information processes which make communication impossible, because the verbal language used in the medias is no longer sufficient to provide a clear understanding of reality.” (Francisco Camps Ortiz, “Meanings,” in Christopher Wool exh. cat., Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, 2006, p. 196)

Ο◆3

Untitled

2006
silkscreen ink on paper
72 x 55 3/8 in. (182.9 x 140.5 cm)
Signed and dated "WOOL 2006" lower margin.

Estimate
$250,000 - 350,000 

Sold for $305,000

Contact Specialist
Kate Bryan
Head of Evening Sale
New York
+ 1 212 940 1267

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 8 May 2016