Tauba Auerbach - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale - Afternoon Session New York Wednesday, November 15, 2017 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    STANDARD, Oslo
    Private Collection, United States
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Exhibited

    Bergen Kunsthall; Malmö Konsthall; Brussels, WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Tauba Auerbach: Tetrachromat, November 11, 2011 - June 6, 2013

  • Literature

    Tauba Auerbach, et. al., Folds, Bergen, 2011, p. 66 (illustrated, back cover)

  • Catalogue Essay

    In her celebrated Fold series, New York artist Tauba Auerbach positions herself amongst a long tradition of artists who have explored the indeterminate space between painting and sculpture. Executed in 2009, the same year that the series was first exhibited, the present lot invites viewers to question notions of depth and reality. Existing in the “2.5th dimension”, a term coined by the artist herself, the work creates an illusion of three-dimensionality on a completely flat surface. In Untitled (Fold), horizontal and vertical lines extend across the delicately textured canvas in a subtle, nuanced rhythm. The composition takes on an understated elegance and luminosity, as the viewer is made to believe in the light and shadow of the “folds”, which, in reality, are slight variations of tone and line on a two-dimensional surface.

    To create these works, Auerbach meticulously folds, contorts and creases the canvas, either ironing it in this position or leaving it to set over several days. She then gently spreads the material out on the floor and sprays it directionally, as to imbed the surface with the memory of being folded. In discussing the nature of these works the artist notes, “I’ve had mixed feelings about the term trompe-l’oeil being used to describe the Folds, and I’ve really come to embrace that. Although they fit the description in some ways, it’s a bit too simple to stop there, because the term doesn’t account for the fact that each painting is a representation of one or more states of a particular surface on that same surface. There is a direct 1:1 indexing that has taken place, like a tally of the depth of each spot recorded on the same spot” (Tauba Auerbach, quoted in Eric Wysocan, "Tools for a Better View", Metropolis M Magazine, March 2013, online). As evidenced in the present lot, the surface Auerbach creates is rooted in the memory of the process. Vertical impressions converge with horizontal ones, creating a grid that is ever so slightly imperfect, further bridging the gap between the mechanical and the handmade.

317

Untitled (Fold)

signed, titled, inscribed and dated "UNTITLED FOLD IV TAUBA AUERBACH 2009" on the overlap
acrylic on linen
40 x 30 in. (101.6 x 76.2 cm.)
Painted in 2009.

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Sold for $287,500

Contact Specialist
Rebekah Bowling
Head of Day Sale, Afternoon Session
New York
+ 1 212 940 1250
rbowling@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale - Afternoon Session

New York Auction 15 November 2017