Please note that at our discretion some lots may b… Read more

Christie’s is delighted to present the following works from an important private German collection (lots 33-37). Assembled with an architectural eye for space and form, these are objects that engage with painting’s past in order to look to the future. The collector has long been attracted to works from the post-War generation: a period of artistic self-reflection between Pop Art and the new figuration that encompasses a broad range of cerebral artistic positions. From brave large-scale American works to radically crafted modes of painting from Europe, what unites the collection is a sense of thoughtful construction and self-reflection. Joseph Marioni, for example, offers a new sublime for the contemporary age, demanding that his sensitive monochrome work be appreciated in real space rather than on a screen, and imbuing his surfaces with a physical grace that transcends the rhetorical limits of painting. Günther Förg’s paintings, meanwhile, emptied of any theory, dogma or subjective aspiration, sceptically parody the high-minded spirituality of Modernist abstraction, building planes of shape and colour according to purely objective criteria. Imi Knoebel is preoccupied with the encounter of colour and its material support, his geometric abstraction refashioning the legacy of Mondrian and Malevich. ‘What can I say about my works that they don’t say? When I am asked about what I think when I look at a painting, I can only answer that I don't think at all; I look at it and can only take in the beauty, and I don’t want to see it in relation to anything else. Only what I see, simply because it has its own validity’ (Imi Knoebel, quoted in J. Stüttgen, ‘“I wouldn't Say Anything Voluntary Anyway!” Interview with Imi Knoebel,’ Imi Knoebel: Works 1966-2014, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, p. 24). Knoebel’s self-justifying principle of beauty stands aptly for the collection, which sought to fully appreciate art outside of the white cube gallery setting, integrating even the most monumental works into daily existence. The present selection gathers things of beauty with a keen awareness of how they are made: with the dual pleasure of insight and enjoyment.PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE GERMAN COLLECTION

Rémy Zaugg (1943-2005)

Ein Selbstbildnis (A Self Portrait)

Details

Rémy Zaugg (1943-2005)
Ein Selbstbildnis (A Self Portrait)
acrylic and screenprint on canvas
200 x 175cm.
Executed in 1990-1991

Provenance

Galerie Isabella Kacprzak, Berlin.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1997.

Special Notice

Please note that at our discretion some lots may be moved immediately after the sale to our third party storage facility at Crown Fine Arts, Gyroscoopweg 19, 1042 AC Amsterdam, Tel +31(0)20 658 33 80 or Fax +31(0)20 658 33 99.

Brought to you by

Lisa Snijders

lsnijders@christies.com +31205755957

Ein Selbstbildnis (A Self Portrait)

Brought to you by

More from Post-War and Contemporary Art