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There is a fierce velocity to the thickly impastoed lines of Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15), 2013, which fly from the edges of the work towards a vertical, feathered black stripe down the center of the composition. Mark Grotjahn’s strips of paint are shapeshifters; they blossom into the shape of a red lotus at the top of the canvas, reminiscent of the series’ titular flower. Another line of red curls into a smile across the lower center, and a blue teardrop shape suggests a dark eye with a red pupil. These vibrant stripes exemplify the visual language of the artist’s 2010s practice, as he deftly combines generations of artistic innovations into his own signature style.
“[Grotjahn] possesses the ‘historical sense,’ which [Modernist writer T.S.] Eliot considered indispensable to an artist in his maturity: a consciousness of the past’s multiplicity, of the spectrum of historical voices that speak through any contemporary voice.”
—Mark PrinceUntitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15) embodies the signature art-historical inspirations of Grotjahn’s oeuvre. There’s a visual similarity between Grotjahn’s expressive brushstrokes and the practices of Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning, and a textural parallel to Pierre Soulages’ richly impastoed black paintings in Grotjahn’s thick, overlapping lines. Grotjahn calls on the practices of these artists’ Modernist ancestors, as well, by taking the human form as the starting point for his abstract practice. In particular, Cubism and German Expressionism are key Modernist referents for Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15). The Cubist sense of fragmentation, and the German Expressionists’ rich, yet dark, color combinations come together in Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15)’s partial face, and the jarring combination of a blue eye and red pupil in the darkness.
Pablo Picasso, Woman’s Head, 1908. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image: © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York When speaking about his Face series, Grotjahn shares, “I like the description of the eyes coming out of the jungle…I sometimes pretend the faces are baboons or monkeys.” However, he is quick to clarify: “I can’t say I’ve been influenced by African art particularly or consciously except that I’ve been influenced by artists who have been influenced. Picasso being the most obvious,” with links to German Expressionists such as Paul Klee and Emil Nolde also present.i
The lozenge shape of the blue eye in Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15) is perhaps the “most obvious” reference to Picasso in the present work, to quote the artist directly. Picasso’s signature eye shape, in turn, was likely inspired by the ovoid eyes of a Congolese Vili figure owned by Henrí Matisse, which Picasso saw in 1906, one year before he completed his seminal painting, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Museum of Modern Art, New York.ii Unlike his Modernist forebears, however, Grotjahn deftly eludes the racist traps of the Primitivism that often accompanied Modernist appropriations of African aesthetics (which include masklike visages, geometric patterns, and bright color combinations), by fully immersing himself in the abstraction of his work.iii
Henri Rousseau, The Equatorial Jungle, 1909. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Image: © National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.213 The abstraction of Grotjahn’s faces increases with time, a trend visible in Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15)—which, dated 2013, comes roughly two-thirds through its respective subseries of Face paintings—in the partial representation of mouth and eye. The artist creates within an early Modernist paradigm in which abstraction and figuration are not mutually exclusive, and this tension serves as the inspiration for his work.iv As Mark Prince writes, “For Grotjahn, the vanishing point had become the vanishing self.”v Grotjahn himself reflects on this, with an artist’s statement from 2010, in which he notices the cyclicality of abstraction across his series, from his early Butterflies to the Face series: “my practice is just coming full circle,” he says, “the snake continues to eat its tail.”vi
i Mark Grotjahn, quoted in “Interview with Mark Grotjahn,” Oct. 10, 2010, PortlandArt, online.
iiDenise Murrell, “African Influences in Modern Art,” The Met: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, 2008, online.
iii Ibid.; Christopher Knight, “Art review: Mark Grotjahn at Blum & Poe,” The Los Angeles Times, Mar. 12, 2010, online.
iv Roberta Smith, “Mark Grotjahn: ‘Nine Faces,’” The New York Times, May 12, 2011, online.
v Mark Prince, “The Divided Self: Mark Grotjahn’s ‘Circus’ series/Das geteilte Selbst: Mark Grotjahns ‘Circus’-Serie,” in Mark Grotjahn: Circus Circus, exh. cat., Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2014, p. 24.
vi Grotjahn, quoted in Mark Grotjahn: Seven Faces, exh. cat., Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, 2010, n.p.
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
Property of a Private American Collector
Ο◆25
Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15)
signed, partially titled and dated "1·1·13 SL XVI M. GROTJAHN" lower right; signed, partially titled and dated "M. Grotjahn 2013 XVI" on the overlap
oil on cardboard mounted on linen
73 1/2 x 53 1/4 in. (186.7 x 135.3 cm)
Painted in 2013.
Estimate
$3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $4,295,000
Carolyn Mayer
Associate Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
+1 212 940 1206
CMayer@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 17 May 2023
1
Noah Davis
Untitled
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $990,600
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2
Caroline Walker
Conservation
Estimate $150,000 - 350,000
Sold for $469,900
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3
Julien Nguyen
Jeu de Paume
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $127,000
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4
Pablo Picasso
Tête de femme au chignon
Estimate $6,000,000 - 9,000,000
Sold for $7,320,000
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5
This lot is no longer available.
6
Louise Bonnet
The Red Pants
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $406,400
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7
Yayoi Kusama
Red Stripes
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,722,000
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8
Yayoi Kusama
Blue Spots
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,206,000
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9
Ewa Juszkiewicz
Untitled (after Ernst Thelott)
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $635,000
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10
Andy Warhol
Self-Portrait (Fright Wig)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,633,000
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11
Ed Ruscha
Dixie Red Seville
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
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12
Yoshitomo Nara
Guitar Girl
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,480,000
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13
Banksy
Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,724,500
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14
Henry Taylor
Dakar, Senegal #3
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $584,200
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15
Robert Colescott
A Death of an Old Mulatta
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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16
Rashid Johnson
Untitled Escape Collage
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $990,600
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17
This lot is no longer available.
18
Roy Lichtenstein
Mirror #7
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $2,843,000
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19
Damien Hirst
Reconciliation
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $927,100
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20
Robert Ryman
Mark
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $3,811,000
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21
Wayne Thiebaud
Chocolate Merangue
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,238,000
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22
Anna Weyant
Unconditional Love
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $609,600
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23
This lot is no longer available.
24
María Berrío
No One Can Hear You, Only the Wind
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $635,000
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25
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15)
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $4,295,000
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26
Wayne Thiebaud
Levee and Cow
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,085,000
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27
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,117,600
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28
Andy Warhol
Mona Lisa Four Times
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,359,000
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29
Ed Ruscha
Manual Mobility
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $3,448,000
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30
Jadé Fadojutimi
The Menstrual Marshland
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $533,400
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31
Helen Frankenthaler
On the Road
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,875,000
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32
Robert Rauschenberg
Bath
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $444,500
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33
This lot is no longer available.
34
Sanya Kantarovsky
Deprivation
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $266,700
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35
Roy Lichtenstein
Girl in Mirror
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,505,000
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36
Issy Wood
Untitled (Harley's foot thing)
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
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37
Simone Leigh
Figure (Cobalt)
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $825,500
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38
Joan Miró
L’Espace
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $381,000
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39
Joan Miró
Femme et oiseau
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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40
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Untitled” (March 5th) #2
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $635,000
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41
Sturtevant
Study for Warhol Marilyn
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $2,419,500
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