Los Carpinteros - Latin America New York Wednesday, May 24, 2017 | Phillips

Latin America

New York Auction 24 May 2017

  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist

  • Catalogue Essay

    "It would be easy, even romantic... to claim [Los Carpinteros] drawings as utopian. There is a part of me that would like to situate them in the Soviet tradition of Vladimir Tatlin’s monument or Lyubov Popova’s clothing designs, or to see them as mining the architectural archives of El Lissitzky or Le Corbusier. And yet somehow I can’t quite make the leap, as pleasurable and as art historically pat as such an argument may be. This is largely because I think that Los Carpinteros’ drawings don’t exist purely in relation to the temporality of an idealized futurity that signifies the utopian. Quite the contrary, I think that the drawings, for all their seeming simplicity, frequently instantiate disparate and condensed versions of time.

    "Helen Molesworth, “Back to the future: Los Carpinteros’ watercolors", Los Carpinteros: Handwork - Constructing the world, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, 2010

  • Artist Biography

    Los Carpinteros

    Cuban • N/A

    The Cuban artist collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) was formed in 1992 and has since produced some of the most important contemporary art in Latin America. Originally comprised of Marco Castillo, Dagoberto Rodriguez and Alexandre Arrechea (who left the group in June 2003), the trio abandoned the concept of individual authorship and instead worked in the tradition of guild and artisan workshops. Their technically sophisticated drawings and sculptures are primarily inspired by design and architectural constructions, such as desks, chairs, armoires and other pieces of furniture. In illustrating seemingly banal objects, Los Carpinteros comment on materialism, highlighting the practicality as well as the uselessness of the depicted objects.

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Sold to benefit FLORA ars+natura

56

Los Carpinteros

Estudio de Hans Poelzig, sólido tres

titled "Estudio de Hans Poelzig, sólido tres" lower center; further signed and dated "Los Carpinteros 2016" lower right
watercolor on paper
31 1/2 x 44 3/4 in. (80 x 113.7 cm)
Executed in 2016.

Estimate
$18,000 - 22,000 

Sold for $21,250

Contact Specialist
Kaeli Deane
Head of Sale, Latin American Art
New York
+1 212 940 1352

Latin America

New York Auction 24 May 2017