David Hammons - Editions & Works on Paper New York Tuesday, October 24, 2023 | Phillips
  • “I am the C.E.O. of the D.O.C.—the Duchamp Outpatient Clinic”
    —David Hammons

    Over the past fifty years, David Hammons has produced sculptures, installations, prints, drawings, paintings, performances, and videos that, with a sense of the sacred and the humorous, investigate the intersection of art and daily life. Hammons' The Holy Bible: Old Testament is a limited-edition artist's book that reappropriates a 1997 softcover edition of Arturo Schwartz’s The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, rebinding the book to resemble a Bible, complete with gilded text embossed on a leatherbound cover. As the originator of the "readymade"—a work of art made by placing an unaltered found object into an artistic context—Marcel Duchamp, perhaps more than any other artist, influenced the course of artmaking over the past century. Here Hammons celebrates Duchamp's close-to-sacred status as the forefather of conceptual art but also offers a gentle criticism: the book is bound as the Old Testament, leaving open the potentiality for a new volume of more recent artistic revelations.

    • Literature

      Ars Publicata, David Hammons, 2004.01

    • Artist Biography

      David Hammons

      American • 1943

      Few artists are afforded the liberty to dictate exhibition schedules and public appearances, but David Hammons eschews the spotlight and rebels against the conventions of the art world. Whether intentionally or not, Hammons creates works so laden with spell-binding metaphor that they have become symbols for movements both in the art world as well as in the public domain. (His now-iconic In the Hood sculpture has been used by Black Lives Matter activist group.)

      Hammons doesn't work in mediums or any formal or academic theory—he famously has said, "I can't stand art actually." Still, with controversial works including his PETA-paint-splashed Fur Coat sculpture, Hammons remains one of contemporary art's most watched artists. Hammons also doesn't frequently exhibit, and his last major gallery show, 2016's "Five Decades," only featured 34 works. With a controlled market, Hammons saw Untitled, a basketball hoop with dangling candelabra, achieve $8 million at Phillips in 2013. 

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399

The Holy Bible: Old Testament

2002
Leather bound book of the revised and expanded two volume Marcel Duchamp Catalogue Raisonné, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, published in 2000 by Arturo Schwartz, with gold embossed lettering on the spine and paper edge-gilding, contained in the original slipcase.
12 7/8 x 10 1/4 x 2 in. (32.7 x 26 x 5.1 cm)
Signed and numbered 147/165 in black ink on the justification page, published by Hand/Eye Projects, London.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for $8,255

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Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 24-26 October 2023