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Lot Essay
Executed in 2000, Study A.G exemplifies Daan van Golden’s redefinition of form through appropriation. Beginning in the 1980s with the reproduction of a simplified profile of a parakeet from Henri Matisse’s La Perruche et la Sirène, silhouettes would come to dominate Van Golden pictorial language. Almost exclusively representing well-known images from art history, Study A.G. finds its source in the reproduction of a work by Alberto Giacometti. His poetic choice of the eponymous sculptor is perhaps inevitable as Giacometti is renowned for developing a style characterised by slender silhouettes.
Drawn from an auction catalogue, the Giacometti reproduction is isolated and enlarged by means of a projector. Meticulously painted against a flat monochrome background to reproduce the motif accurately, his formal and laborious technique reframes the original object, imbuing the work with new meaning. More than an act of homage, van Golden draws the distinction between perception and apperception.
Study A.G forms part of a rare body of work by the artist. Shying from the commercialisation of the art world, van Golden quotes the Prince of Dutch poets, Roland Holst, ‘art is not a contest’ maintaining the luxury of precision and attention to detail in his work. Engaging himself in a limited number of exhibitions, Study A.G dates from one year after he represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale.
Van Golden’s oeuvre forms an endless circle that celebrates the concerns of contemporaneous artistic movements such as pop-art, postmodernism or appropriation, reflecting a practice that essentially questions the nature of painting, everyday imagery and perception. A direct confrontation with a modern master, Study A.G is a reflection on, if not perversion of, the development of art as the pretension of invention gives way to critical observation.
Drawn from an auction catalogue, the Giacometti reproduction is isolated and enlarged by means of a projector. Meticulously painted against a flat monochrome background to reproduce the motif accurately, his formal and laborious technique reframes the original object, imbuing the work with new meaning. More than an act of homage, van Golden draws the distinction between perception and apperception.
Study A.G forms part of a rare body of work by the artist. Shying from the commercialisation of the art world, van Golden quotes the Prince of Dutch poets, Roland Holst, ‘art is not a contest’ maintaining the luxury of precision and attention to detail in his work. Engaging himself in a limited number of exhibitions, Study A.G dates from one year after he represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale.
Van Golden’s oeuvre forms an endless circle that celebrates the concerns of contemporaneous artistic movements such as pop-art, postmodernism or appropriation, reflecting a practice that essentially questions the nature of painting, everyday imagery and perception. A direct confrontation with a modern master, Study A.G is a reflection on, if not perversion of, the development of art as the pretension of invention gives way to critical observation.