Private-owner auction: Grayson Perry to Marc Quinn and Aboudia
An important private-owner collection of Contemporary and Modern Art is to be offered at Chiswick Auctions on 27th June. Collected over a 25 year period, works by esteemed artists including Grayson Perry, Marc Quinn, Aboudia Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, César, Franz Ackermann, Jim Dine, Ugo Rondinone and Ned Vena will be offered in the auction. The collection is of particular significance due to the sheer scope of artwork it embraces, featuring an array of media, style and content.
Ahead of the sale, we take a closer look at a selection of the highlights:
Grayson Perry, untitled, 1992. Earthenware. H: 32.5cm x 31cm approx.
We are delighted to have one of Grayson Perry’s works on display ahead of the auction. Perry graduated from Portsmouth Polytechnic with a BA in Fine Art in 1982. This work juxtaposes a detail from an Old Master work with that of a contemporary image of a cyclist. Perry’s work spotlights the complexities behind contemporary society, combined with autobiographical references to his family and transvestite alter ego Claire.
He explores the universal and unstable questions of identity, gender, taste and social status through the playful use of traditional art forms, such as richly textured ceramics, printmaking and tapestry to make sharp and satirical observations about the world that we live in. There is often a marked discrepancy between these traditional forms and the depictions that embellish them.
Make sure you visit Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Exhibition Ever! at The Serpentine Galleries this summer, which showcases Perry's Brexit vases and explores the contested questions of popularity, art, masculinity and the prevailing cultural and political landscape.
Aboudia Abdoulaye Diarrasouba, untitled, 2013. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas. 125cm x 200cm.
Aboudia Abdoulaye Diarrassouba is renowned for his large-scale, multi-layered and fiercely energetic paintings. In 2011 the artist sought refuge in a basement studio and began a body of work that was deeply affected by the political situation in Ivory Coast following the disputed Ivorian presidential election in late 2010.
His enigmatic work combines figures, fragments of comic strips, advertising and the media and emphasises the power of paint to suggest the vitality and anarchy of life. Aboudia has exhibited work at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel, the Nevada Museum of Art, USA and the Saatchi Gallery, London.
Marc Quinn, Young Dancer Aged 14, 1988. Made in bread and cast in bronze. 96.5cm x 39.4cm x 55.9cm .Ed 1/6.
Marc Quinn first came to prominence in the early 1990’s and since then has redefined the parameters of contemporary art. Quinn's work explores complex issues including man’s relationship with nature, social history, identity and beauty, while continually entering into a dialogue with art history.
Jim Dine, The Heart Machine, 1990. Bronze with pink and brown patina. 119.4cm x 27.9cm x 27.9cm, ed. Edition 2 of 6.
‘I would have been quite pleased to have been a pop artist; I was very involved with pop art…but let’s face it, I wasn’t one. I used some popular imagery…but I wasn’t glorifying consumerism.’ – Jim Dine.
American artist Jim Dine has consistently used the heart motif in his paintings, sculptures and prints. During the early 1960’s, Dine and his contemporaries including Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow displayed their work in unusual and unconventional spaces referred to by Dine as ‘painters theatre.'
Dine developed a unique style of re-contextualising popular symbols that was informed by expressionism, introspection and personal experience. Dine’s work distinguishes itself from the irony that defined the pop movement. His work evades any one category and he uses the heart symbol to playfully explore colour, form and texture.
Benjamin Cohen, Study of an Interior/Exterior with Duck, 2012. Oil, acrylic and pencil on canvas. 157.5cm x 157.5cm.
Benjamin Cohen is a London born and based artist who studied at Central Saint Martins and in 2009 was one of the last 30 artists to be considered for the Channel 4 programme School of Saatchi. Cohen’s style has become increasingly abstract, yet does retain figurative elements. His practice investigates the relationship between, and capabilities of image-making and the ephemerality of modern life.
Over 50 lots will go under the hammer with estimates starting at £800 and rising to £70,000.