Tim Eitel - 20th Century & Contemporary Art: Online Auction, New York New York Monday, March 11, 2024 | Phillips
  • Tim Eitel’s contemplative portrayals of modern society have positioned the artist at the forefront of contemporary German painting. His ethereal portraits transpose subjects taken from scenes of everyday life into an alternative reality devoid of nearly all descriptive details. A single painting, park or empty wall becomes a minimalist backdrop for Eitel’s figures. Often engaged in ordinary activities like observing art or walking through nature, Eitel’s subjects are vessels for exploring the ways in which humans interact with the spaces they occupy.

     

    In Blau und Gelb, 2002, a figure stands in front of a fabricated rendition of a Piet Mondrian work. The crisp perpendicular lines of a teal barrier and black railing towards the lower half of the painting seem to incorporate the figure into the composition of the Mondrian work. This conflation of space and figure into a concise narrative scene is a defining facet of Eitel’s work. Using these distilled slices of life, he explores the idiosyncrasies of spatial relationships in the modern world. Often choosing to depict figures with their back turned or looking away, Eitel employs a sense of anonymity to make his artistic investigations more salient.

    “My paintings have something to do with the fact that we are surrounded by so many images, but we cannot fully decode them as language. My images are open and closed at the same time. You have to read them as images—it makes absolutely no sense to analyze them linguistically.”
    —Tim Eitel

    According to the artist, his opinions and practice with regards to referencing Mondrian have changed over time. Early works by Eitel were in his words, “direct references” that “analyzed the spaces of and for art” through scenes of museum interiors.i However, he notes that the contradictions within Mondrian’s work carry a certain personal association for him–one of a “totally rational, lifeless structure, behind which you find this utopian theory of salvation.”ii Eitel’s allusions to Mondrian’s distinct aesthetic propel both the spatial analysis and examination of the overarching human condition that have come to define his oeuvre.

     

    i Tim Eitel, quoted in Dorothea Schoene, “Interview with Tim Eitel,” X-TRA, Fall 2007, online.

    ii Ibid.

    • Provenance

      Galerie EIGEN + ART, Leipzig
      Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2002

    • Exhibited

      Berlin, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Tim Eitel, December 13–29, 2002, pp. 5, 13 (illustrated, p. 13)
      Museum zu Allerheiligen/Kunstverein Schaffhausen; Altkirch, Centre rhénan d'art contemporain; Galerie der Stadt Backnang, Tim Eitel: Terrain, June 6, 2004–April 17, 2005, p. 55 (illustrated)
      Rochester Art Center, Tim Eitel: Elsewhere, January 26–April 28, 2013

    • Literature

      Sebastian Preuss, "Coole Träume von der blauen Blume," The Berliner Zeitung, January 1, 2003, online

8

Blau und Gelb

signed, titled and dated "TIM EITEL 2002 "BLAU UND GELB"" on the reverse
oil and acrylic on canvas
59 x 78 1/2 in. (149.9 x 199.4 cm)
Painted in 2002.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000 

Sold for $127,000

Contact Specialist

Katerina Blackwood
Associate Specialist, Head of Online Sales
20th Century & Contemporary Art
+1 212 940 1248
KBlackwood@phillips.com
 

20th Century & Contemporary Art: Online Auction, New York

11 - 20 March 2024