ART | 40 | BASEL

June 10 through June 14, 2009

David Zwirner
525 West 19th Street

New York, NY 10011 212 727 2070 telephone 212 727 2072 fax www.davidzwirner.com

Contents
4 8 Adel Abdessemed Tomma Abts

10 Francis Als 14 Mamma Andersson 16 Michal Borremans 20 Marlene Dumas 24 Isa Genzken 28 On Kawara 32 Gordon Matta-Clark 38 John McCracken 44 Chris Ofili 48 Neo Rauch 52 Daniel Richter 54 Thomas Ruff 58 Fred Sandback 62 Al Taylor 66 Luc Tuymans 70 Christopher Williams 74 Yan Pei-Ming 76 Lisa Yuskavage

Adel Abdessemed
Practice zero tolerance (retourne)
2008 Terracotta 71 x 169 1/2 x 46 inches (180.3 x 430.5 x 116.8 cm) Approximate weight: 3970 lbs (1800 kg)

Addressing themes of power and violent rebellion, Practice zero tolerance (retourne) presents the blackened body of car, as if upended by a riot or bombing. However, Adel Abdessemed does not simply present a found object; the car is in fact a clay replica. Cast from the remains of an automobile that was vandalized during the 2005 riots that took place in Perpignan, on one level, the sculpture functions as a memorial to the civil and ethnic unrest in France. Moreover, the title of the work refers to the governmental policy of zero tolerance, which has increasingly been imposed upon citizens around the world despite being criticized by many for producing as much violence as it aims to repress. By using black terracotta, the artist brings the car back to the earth in a kind of symbolic transformation. In his words: The car had been burned, that is to say physically, stained by gas. I find fascinating the alchemy that takes place between metal, plastic, petroleum, and gasoline, all these materials that come from the earth, of which the piece is the crystallization in clay.1 In this sense, Practice zero tolerance (retourne) addresses the transformative and generative potential of rebellion without negating its destructive and violent nature.
1

The artist, cited in Tom McDonough, The Mole, in Adel Abdessemed: Situation and Practice. Exh. cat. (Cambridge [Mass.]: MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2008), p. 82.

Provenance The artist Exhibited Cambridge, List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Adel Abdessemed: Situation and Practice, October 10, 2008 January 4, 2009; exhibition catalogue, pp. 20-21, illustrated. New York, David Zwirner, Adel Abdessemed: Rio, April 3 May 9, 2009. Literature Francesco Bonami, et al., Adel Abdessemed. Les ailes de dieu / Le ali di dio. Exh. cat. (Turin: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, 2009), pp. 10-11, illustrated.

Adel Abdessemed
Music box
2009 Steel 38 x 68 x 35 inches (96.5 x 172.7 x 88.9 cm)

With Music box, Adel Abdessemed has constructed a mechanized musical device from recycled materials, including a steel oil drum and bicycle frames welded together. Screws are affixed in a predetermined sequence to the revolving oil barrel and strike the teeth of a metal comb to produce sounds that fill the room. Popular in Europe in the 19th Century, music boxes later became common childrens toys. Abdessemeds sculpture plays a musical sequence from Richard Wagners Die Walkre (The Valkyrie), the well-known 19th Century opera drawn from Norse war mythology, in which female figures choose those who die in battle. Here, Abdessemed questions notions of femininity, domesticity, and the innocence of childhood, combining these themes with the recurring brutality of war.

Provenance The artist Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Adel Abdessemed: Rio, April 3 May 9, 2009. 6

Tomma Abts
Ype
1998 Acrylic and oil on canvas 19 x 15 inches (48 x 38 cm) Signed verso

Tomma Abts makes complex paintings whose subject is ultimately the process of their creation. The artist starts each work without a preconceived composition. Guided largely by intuition, she nevertheless works within rigid parameters: all canvases are 48 x 38 cm and vertical. Their evolution is evidenced by ridges and uneven texturethe result of methodical overpainting and reworking of the image. The obsessively worked paintings display a sharp attention to details of shading and coloration. The artist creates intense illusions, rendering shadows and highlights that challenge any single or realistic light source. The resulting works achieve a paradoxically fractured holism, ultimately conveying balance and movement, while maintaining a sense of uncertainty akin to memory. As critic Adrian Searle has noted, the intimate works and their upright rectangular proportions recall domestic portraiture.1 The titles, drawn from a dictionary of first names, emphasize each paintings individuality and impart a sense of history, albeit unknown, to the canvases. Despite some connections, Abtss works ultimately do not fit into any movement or recognizable historical moment. Furthermore, the artist is distinctly uninterested in a dialogue about abstraction or the history of abstraction in her work; in contrast Abts has expressed a desire to transcend the past or present and point to an art of the future.
1

Adrian Searle, Is anyone there?, in The Guardian (December 13, 2005).

Provenance greengrassi, London (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, Puerto Rico Exhibited London, greengrassi, Tomma Abts, Steve Dowson, Gareth Jones: The Origin of Parties, October 31 December 5, 1998.

Francis Als
Guards
2004-05 Installation composed of: Guards, single channel video projection from digibeta, 30:00 minutes, color, sound; and one annex video: Shoeshine, 32:49 minutes (loop), color, sound Edition 4 of 4 + 2 AP

Francis Als has described this work as follows: In June 1999 I did this sort of homage to Fluxus with a musical piece, a walk titled DuettI entered Venice by the train station, while a friend of minearrived on the same day via Marco Polo Airport. We started wandering, looking for one another in the labyrinth of Venice, each of us carrying half of a tuba, hoping that we would be led to one another. There was a simple dramatic construction to the piece, with A and B needing to find each other. Eventually, there was a happy ending, maybe even a moral to the story, with the physical reunion of the two halves and the resulting production of sound...I orchestrated an[other] event in London based on a similar mechanics but introducing a different dimension (Guards). I re-staged the plot with a regiment of sixty-four Coldstream Guards. Each soldier entered the City of London walking normally. When he heard the steps of another soldier he would join in, fall into step, and the two would start marching together. They would eventually meet another soldier or group of soldiers and repeat the same protocol, continuing until the full formation was complete. It was like the spreading of a rumor, but also the progressive building of a square, as the final figure to be formed by the full company was an eight-by-eight soldier square. You have to imagine the whole thing performed by this perfect machine of synchronization of a British regiment. In Duett when two people were looking for one another it had a kind of sexual dimension, but when the number of participants grew to sixty-four what had been a love story turned into a social allegory.1 An annex video, Shoeshine, which is displayed on a monitor outside the projection room in which Guards is presented, shows a Coldstream Guard meticulously shining his boots in his barracks. The other editions of Guards are in the following collections: 1 of 4: Tate, London; 2 of 4: Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht; and 3 of 4: Private Collection, New York.
1

Provenance The artist Exhibited London, 21 Portman Square, Francis Als: Seven Walks, September 28 November 20, 2005; exhibition catalogue, illustrated throughout. Washington, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Black Box: Francis Als, April 17 August 13, 2006. Bolzano, Italy, Museion Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art, Peripheral vision and collective body, May 24 September 21, 2008; exhibition catalogue. Literature

Francis Als, Russell Ferguson in conversation with Francis Als, in Francis Als (London: Phaidon, 2007).

Cuauhtmoc Medina, et al., Francis Als (London: Phaidon, 2007), p. 38, illustrated.

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Francis Als
Jerusalem E.
2004 Oil on panel 5 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches (14 x 19.1 cm) Signed and dated verso

Baqe
2004 Oil on panel 5 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches (14 x 19.1 cm) Signed and dated verso

Bazra
2003 Oil on panel 5 x 7 inches (12.7 x 17.8 cm) Signed and dated verso

A compulsive wanderer, Francis Als is known for his in-depth projects in a wide range of media including documentary film, painting, photography, performance, and video. Many of his works involve intense observation and the recording of the social, cultural, and economic conditions of particular places, usually conceived during walks through urban areas. In these projects, which are typically displayed along with working notes, drawings, paintings, photographs, and ephemeral material employed in their processes, Als creates powerfully original metaphors for human will. These three oil on panel works relate to a film Als made in collaboration with Julien Devaux that was first presented in 2005 at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and shown in Alss 2007 exhibition at David Zwirner titled Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can Become Political and Sometimes Doing Something Political Can Become Poetic. The film shows Als walking from one end of Jerusalem to another with a dripping can of green paint along the armistice boundary that Moshe Dayan marked on a map with green pencil after Israels War of Independence ended in 1948. The piece questions the physicality and cultural relevance of the so-called Green Line, its function as a social and spiritual division in the city of Jerusalem, and its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The paintings were executed by the artist while he was in Israel working on this project; they function as plein air studies, documenting scenes observed in and around Jerusalem.
12 Provenance The artist Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Francis Als: Sometimes Doing Something Poetic Can Become Political and Sometimes Doing Something Political Can Become Poetic, February 15 March 17, 2007; exhibition catalogue.

Mamma Andersson
The Best Storyteller II
2005 Acrylic and oil on panel 48 x 31 1/2 inches (121.9 x 80 cm) Signed, titled, and dated verso

Inspired by filmic imagery, theater sets, and period interiors, Mamma Anderssons dreamlike compositions are populated by ghostly figures, shadows, swirling clouds, and distant mountains. Anderssons use of windows, reflections, and depictions of paintings and framed images within the pictorial space is enhanced by the juxtaposition of thick paint and textured washes, creating a setting for vaguely supernatural occurrences. Here, the artist has depicted two stacked video monitors, much like those used to show video art in a gallery or museum setting. One monitor presents a cartoon scene (showing Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse), while the other shows figures in a barren, winter landscape in a scene that evokes northeren European genre painting. Anderssons work often employs a deliberately disjointed narrative technique and is characterized by a kind of nuanced storytelling. A highly intentional cinematic quality is reinforced by the artists combination of images and painting techniques. In a description of her work, she states, Borrowing and lending, mixing up to see what happens. A kind of unstructured echo of history, where high and low play on equal terms. Constant attempts to portray reality in a way that is not subordinated to reality.1
1

Mamma Andersson, A Voyage Inside a Frame, in Dick Bengtsson. Exh. cat. (Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 2006), n.p.

Provenance Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (acquired directly from the artist) Cartin Collection, Hartford, Connecticut David Zwirner, New York Private Collection Exhibited Sydney, Zones of Contact: 15th Biennale of Sydney, International Festival of Contemporary Art, June 8 August 27, 2006; exhibition catalogue, p. 289. Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Mamma Andersson, May 5 August 5, 2007; traveled to Helsinki, Helsingen Taidehalli, August 18 September 16, 2007; and London, Camden Arts Centre, September 28 November 25, 2007; exhibition catalogue, n.p., illustrated. New York, David Zwirner, The Gallery, July 3 August 8, 2008.

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Michal Borremans
Horse Hunting
2005 Oil on canvas 51 x 39 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches (129.5 x 100.3 x 3.2 cm) Signed, titled, and dated verso

Like many of Michal Borremanss paintings, Horse Hunting resides in an uncomfortable stateone that is best understood through introspection rather than imposed rationale. Here, the viewer is confronted with a bizarre scenario; a young man, fashionably attired, is shown holding two wooden sticks which protrude from each of his nostrils. The overbearing shadow in the background of the painting looms over the subject, whose expression seems to impart both arrogance and pity, creating a dramatic and haunting gesture. Borremans often depicts figures who are engaged in some unfathomable or futile activity. In this curious image, the ambiguous absurdity, combined with psychological potency, produces a surreal and disturbing composition, which is further intensified by its technical virtuosity. Borremanss work has a unique ability to become increasingly eerie and unsettling after prolonged viewing. Horse Hunting is no exception it remains enchantingly unrevealing. As Ziba de Weck Ardalan remarks, On closer examination Borremanss paintings act forcefully to thrust us into a void where we hover uncertainly, trying to comprehend where the artist is taking us. We quickly realize that his skilful brushwork is not there solely to please our eyes, but rather to tantalize us. We wonder whether we are observing a narrative world. Do these images correspond to the realm of the surreal? Are we getting a glimpse of some unpredictable future or are these purely imaginary scenes to which only the artist has the key? All of the sudden, Borremanss paintings open up myriad possibilities.1
1

Ziba de Weck Ardalan et al., Michal Borremans: The Performance (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2005) p. 86.

Provenance David Zwirner, New York (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, New York Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Michal Borremans: Horse Hunting, March 7 April 1, 2006; exhibition catalogue, n.p., illustrated. Paris, La Maison Rouge, Michal Borremans, June 8 September 24, 2006.

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Michal Borremans
Oblivion
2002 Oil on canvas 27 3/8 x 23 3/4 inches (69.5 x 60.3 cm) Signed, titled, and dated verso

Michal Borremanss oneiric and haunting paintings evoke a highly suggestive atmosphere, simultaneously gentle and sinister, that lingers long in the mind of the viewer. Reflecting psychic states, his scenes are rife with introspection and narrative disjunction. In Oblivion, Borremans explores the limits of representation and cognition through the familiar and traditional genre of portraiture. The artist presents an otherwise straightforward bust of a young man but obscures the face with a dark painted rectangle, uncomfortably negating the viewers ability to make an analytic identification. The multiple meanings of the title-word oblivion most commonly the state of being completely forgotten impart a paradoxical poignancy, as the work is seen as a metaphor for human existence, or more pointedly, for the creative process.

Provenance Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection

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Marlene Dumas
Cleaning the Pole
2000 Oil on canvas 90 1/2 x 23 5/8 inches (229.9 x 60 cm) Signed, titled, and dated verso

Cleaning the Pole belongs to a group of works by Marlene Dumas based on photographs of female strippers. Large in scale, a nude pole dancer is depicted with her face partially obscured by her outstretched arms in an active pose that is at once intimate and monumental. As with other paintings and works on paper by Dumas from the late 1990s and the turn of the millennium based on pornographic and erotic imagery, the artist has rendered the figure tenderly, thus prying the depiction of women away from the cultural processes of objectification in a reinvention of the female nude. In her own words, Dumas has explained: Why do my pictures escape the voyeuristic gaze? This was a question put to me recently. My reaction was: Im not a Peeping Tom, Im a painter; Im not even a photographer. But I thinkthe aim is to reveal, not to display. It is the discourse of the Lover. I am intimately involved with my subject matter in this painting. I am not disengaged from the subject of my gaze. With photographic activities it is possible that those who take the picture leave no traces of their presence, and are absent from the images. Paintings exist as the traces of their makers and by the grace of these traces. You cant take a paintingyou make a painting.1
1

Marlene Dumas, Miss Interpreted (1992), reprinted in Dominic van den Boogerd, et al., Marlene Dumas (London: Phaidon, 1999), p. 122.

Provenance Private Collection, Europe (acquired directly from the artist) Exhibited Amsterdam, Theatermuseum Theater Instituut Nederland, Anton Corbijn + Marlene Dumas: Strippinggirls, April 15 July 2, 2000; traveled to Ghent, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst/SMAK, September 9 October 8, 2000; exhibition catalogue, n.p., illustrated. Literature Uta Grosenick, ed., Women Artists in the 20th and 21st Century (Cologne: Taschen, 2001), fig. 3, p. 111, illustrated (and in 2005 revised edition: fig. 3, p. 67, illustrated).

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Marlene Dumas
Long Life
2002 Oil on canvas 31 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches (80 x 70 cm)

In 2002, Marlene Dumas created a series of paintings that depicted corpses and terror victims, showing faces that cannot see because they are either blind, blindfolded, or dead.1 However, these works were not simple in their depiction of death and violence. The artist implemented varied source material in these works, ranging from art historical referents to post-9/11 images of victims of abuse and war culled from news reports. In her works, the act of painting de-familiarizes infinitely reproduced imagery, achieving a kind of mediated distance from the subject-matter depicted. Works such as Long Life allow the viewer a distance from which to contemplate the themes of mortality, time, and memory. The artist thus eloquently explores how painting can meaningfully represent death within the context of a media-saturated culture. Dumas has explained her interest in the idea of death as examined in her work as follows: Paintings presence is not situated in the present...I am portraying the deadness of death, through a medium declared dead. The silence of the image versus the friction of (political) associations. I could not, would not see my dead figures like I do, if painting and I werent haunted by the ghosts of art history, as it is. Holders Valentine meets Holbeins Christ, Davids Marat meets Gericaults dead men.2 Moreover, for Dumas, art is, and has always been, a preparation for death3: every work of art is inevitably marked by death in that it is in part created as a gesture towards immortality.
1

Marlene Dumas, About Time and Again (artists statement), in Marlene Dumas: Time and Again. Exhibition brochure (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2003), n.p. ibid. Marlene Dumas, cited in Dominic van den Boogerd, A Good Looking Corpse, in Marlene Dumas: Suspect (Milan: Skira, 2003), p. 21.

2 3

Provenance Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp Private Collection, Los Angeles Exhibited Antwerp, Zeno X Storage Borgerhout, Marlene Dumas. Time and Again, September 28 November 16, 2002. Venice, Fundazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzetto Tito, Marlene Dumas. Suspect, June 12 September 25, 2003; exhibition catalogue, p. 65, illustrated. 22

Isa Genzken
Berg
1989 Concrete with steel base Overall: 65 x 20 1/8 x 22 inches (164.9 x 51.1 x 55.9 cm) Concrete: 11 x 20 1/8 x 22 inches (27.7 x 51.1 x 55.9 cm) Steel base: 54 x 20 x 22 inches (137.2 x 50.8 x 55.9 cm)

Since the mid-1970s, when she emerged as a powerful successor to artists such as Sigmar Polke and Joseph Beuys, Isa Genzken has become one of the most revered sculptors in Europe. Consistently displaying unconventional choices and combinations of materials, her diverse practice includes sculpture, collage, film, and photography. Genzkens work primarily comprises a continuous exploration into the classic themes of sculpture; such as the connection between materials and form, the arrangement of mass and volume, and the relationship between the object, the surrounding space, and the viewer. Genzken began working with concrete in 1986, creating a series of small sculptures placed at eye level. The heavy chunks of concrete are supported by linear steel bases, paying homage to the two most important structural materials in modern architecture, while simultaneously imbuing the works with a paradoxical sense of weightlessness. Functioning on the basis of topographical inversion, Genzken introduces the jagged, eroded construction material into the pristine space of the museum, transposing outside and inside. Fissures mark the time elapsed between concrete pours, combined with the imprints left by wooden molds, as indexical signs of the artists casting process. Additionally, the artist often smashes the sculptures to bleak and brutal effect. As evidenced by Berg (Mountain), Genzkens works are reminiscent of churches, ruins, or bombed-out buildings. Recalling specific events in German history like the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall and the destruction of World War II, the works may also more broadly address the impoverishment of their contemporary moment.

Provenance Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, Boston Exhibited Chicago, The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago, Isa Genzken: Everybody Needs at Least One Window, May 14 June 28, 1992; traveled to Frankfurt, Portikus, November 28, 1992 January 3, 1993; Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, February April 1993; and Munich, Stdtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, May June 1993; exhibition catalogue, p. 100, illustrated. New York, David Zwirner, a point in space is a place for an argument, June 28 August 10, 2007.

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Isa Genzken
Untitled
2004 Aluminum, mirror foil, adhesive tape 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 inches (80 x 60 cm)

Isa Genzkens works express an attraction with what surrounds and shapes our everyday lives, from design, consumer goods, and media; to architecture and urban environments. Her interest lies in the way in which common aesthetic styles come to illustrate and embody political and social ideologies. Untitled, which developed out of her series Social Faades, 2002, reflects the artists fascination with the relationship between art, architecture, design, and social experience. Here, she creates an abstract collage by layering various reflective materials that refer to the faades of corporate towers, modern interior design, and nightclub aesthetics. Her attraction to the psychedelic qualities of industrial materials and the properties of color are expressed in this lowrelief wall piece. Untitled functions as a formal link between two bodies of sculpture by the artist, incorporating the geometry and reflective surfaces of her glass pieces and the spontaneous grouping of materials that forms the aesthetic basis for her recent assemblages.

Provenance The artist Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Isa Genzken: New Work, February 10 March 5, 2005.

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On Kawara
MAY 9, 1967
1967 from Today Series, No. 80, 1967Charlotte Moorman in New York and Provos in Amsterdam. Liquitex on canvas 13 x 18 inches (33 x 45.7 cm) Signed verso; accompanied by artist-made box

For over four decades, On Kawara has created paintings, drawings, and books that examine chronological time and its function as a measure of human existence. The artist began making his now signature date paintings on January 4, 1966 in New York City, and continues to make them in different parts of the world. Following the same basic procedure and format, each painting is carefully executed by hand with the date documented in the language and grammatical conventions of the country in which it is made. The artist has created a version of the sans serif typeface, which he uses to meticulously paint the letters and numbers in white on a monochrome surface. The paintings conform to one of eight standard sizes, ranging from 8 x 10 inches to 61 x 89 inches. When available, a local newspaper clipping is used to line the interior of a cardboard box that encases the painting when not on display. The Today Series, though simple and direct, suggests a profound and important message. It not only addresses the passage of time, but the nature of pure consciousness. The artist, as Jonathan Watkins has noted, regards the process of making the Date Paintings as a form of meditation, a routine conducive to the loss of ego and distractions from fundamental truths equally if not more evident to our illiterate forebears. However, the vehicle for the meditation is not without distinguishing features or focus and these can be articulated. The date is about time, and surely and ultimately about human mortality.1 A label affixed to the back of this canvas indicates that the work was painted by the artist in New York City and includes a reference to news items found in the newspaper from the day on which it was painted: Charlotte Moorman in New York and Provos in Amsterdam. Charlotte Moorman was an American cellist and performance artist known for her avant-garde happenings and collaborations with artists such as Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, and Yoko Ono; Provos were members of a Dutch counter-cultural movement from the mid-1960s who staged absurdist, non-violent happenings in Amsterdam to provoke the authorities.
1

Jonathan Watkins, Where I Dont Know Is the Right Answer, in Jonathan Watkins, et al., On Kawara (London: Phaidon, 2002), p. 86.

Provenance Private Collection, Japan (acquired directly from the artist) David Zwirner, New York

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On Kawara
NOV. 14, 2007
2007 from Today Series, No. 35, 1966Wednesday. Liquitex on canvas 13 x 18 inches (33 x 45.7 cm) Signed verso; accompanied by artist-made box with newspaper clipping

NOV. 14, 2008

These two paintings were grouped together by On Kawara after he realized that he had painted the same date in 2007 and 2008 in the same format, both with a similar newspaper clipping (the weather page from The New York Times from each paintings respective date) affixed to the cardboard boxes that house the paintings when they are not on display.

Provenance The artist 30

Gordon Matta-Clark
Splitting
1974 Collaged gelatin silver prints on cardboard Framed: 40 3/4 x 30 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches (103.5 x 78.1 x 3.8 cm) Photocollage: 32 1/2 x 27 3/4 inches (82.6 x 70.5 cm)

Gordon Matta-Clarks practice during the 1970s introduced new and radical modes of physically exploring and subverting urban architecture. Splitting documents one of his first iconic cut pieces, in which the artist, along with several friends, laboriously sliced open an abandoned two-story house that was slated for demolition in Englewood, New Jersey, during the spring of 1974. Over a period of several months, Matta-Clark made two parallel vertical cuts through all of the houses structural surfaces; he then removed several of the foundation blocks on which it stood, making one half of the house lean slightly away from the other, creating a wedge-shaped interstice between the two sides. Before the building was demolished and removed in September 1974, he also extracted the four upper corners of the structure, subsequently exhibiting them as free-standing works of art (now in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). The transformation of this vacant, quintessential suburban home, which for Matta-Clark represented the decay of the American dream, generated a series of uncanny and somewhat vertiginous photographs. In this unique collage, Matta-Clark has combined photographic fragments to create a disorienting perspective of his building cuts. The formal and thematic sensibility of this image expresses the artists ingenuity in regard to the convergence of photography and the medium of architecture. His photocollages express the multiplicity of perspectives that his architectural cuts afford. Like many artists of his generation (most notably Robert Smithson), Matta-Clark expressed a pronounced fascination with the temporal qualities of architecture and the art object. Nearly all of the works he produced are ephemeral; most of his signature pieces survive only in film or photographic form. Splitting is one such work. There are two similar photo-collages of Splitting, one is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the other is in the collection of Jane Crawford, the artists widow.

Exhibited Chicago, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Gordon Matta-Clark: A Retrospective, May 8 August 18, 1985; exhibition catalogue, p. 70, pl. 44, illustrated. Sheboygan, Wisconsin, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Threshold: Invoking the Domestic in Contemporary Art, April 30 August 15, 1999; traveled to Virginia Beach, Arts Center of Virginia, 2000, exhibition catalogue. Sion, Switzerland, Pnitencier de Valre, Evenement son et art contemporains, May 1 4, 2003. Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960-1982, October 12, 2003 January 4, 2004; traveled to Los Angeles, UCLA Hammer Museum, February 8 May 9, 2004; Vigo, Spain, MARCO Museo de Arte Contempornea de Vigo, May 28 September 19, 2004; Winterthur, Fotomuseum Winterthur, November 29, 2004 February 20, 2005; and Miami, Miami Art Center, March 11 June 12, 2005; exhibition catalogue, pp. 191, 208, illustrated. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Gordon Matta-Clark: You are the Measure, February 22 June 7, 2007; traveled to Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, September 16, 2007 January 27, 2008; and Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, February 2 May 4, 2008; exhibition catalogue, p. 109, illustrated (another version). Literature Elizabeth Janus, ed., Veronicas Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives in Photography (Zurich: Scalo, 1998), p. 87. Pamela C. Scorzin, Gordon Matta-Clark, in Knstler: Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, vol. 48, no. 29, (Munich: WBVerlag, 1999), p. 13, pl.15, illustrated. David Hopkins, After Modern Art 1945 2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 168. Corinne Diserens, ed., Gordon Matta-Clark (London: Phaidon, 2003), p. 174 and cover, illustrated. Daniel Marzona, Conceptual Art (London: Taschen, 2005), p. 79, illustrated.

Provenance Holly Solomon Gallery, New York Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris Lambert Art Collection, Switzerland Phillips de Pury, New York (November 8, 2004; lot 142) Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark

Philip Jodidio, Architecture: Art (New York: Prestel, 2005), p. 28, illustrated. Gloria Moure, Gordon Matta-Clark, Works and Collected Writings (Barcelona: Ediciones Polgrafa, 2006), p. 153, illustrated. Stephen Walker, Gordon Matta-Clark: Art, Architecture, and the Attack on Modernism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), p. 37, illustrated.

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Gordon Matta-Clark
Coat Closet
1973 Two elements - plaster, wood lathe, nails, panels and two gelatin silver prints mounted on board Gelatin silver prints, framed: 34 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches (87.6 x 44.5 cm) Floor and ceiling section: 17 x 13 x 14 1/4 inches (43.2 x 33 x 36.2 cm)

Gordon Matta-Clarks work invites the viewer to critically examine the temporal qualities of architectural space through the artists processoriented actions, which challenge the traditional perception of artistic production and question the status of the art object. His signature building cuts demonstrate his interest in altering and redefining architecture through the removal of space. In the early 1970s, Matta-Clark made a series of building fragments accompanied by photographs; Coat Closet is one such work. Consisting of an extraction taken from inside a coat closet, along with two blackand-white photographs documenting the location of the removal, this work, along with similar works such as Bronx Floors, 1972, examines Matta-Clarks ongoing preoccupation with transforming space within architectural structures. Elisabeth Sussman points out, Matta-Clarks cuts increasingly revealed a design or structural principle, an intuition about spatial relationships that complicated the perception of walls and floors in normative experience. But when he showed the evidence of his cuts, he strategically would either reveal his logic clearly, or obscure it, opening up view as he wrote, to the unvisible.1
1

Elisabeth Sussman, The Mind is Vast and Ever Present, in Gordon Matta-Clark: You are the Measure. Exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2007), p. 21.

Provenance Galerie Blancpain Stepczynski, Geneva Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark Exhibited Valencia, IVAM, Centro Julio Gonzalez, Gordon Matta-Clark, December 3, 1992 January 31, 1993; traveled to Marseille, Muse Cantini, March 5 May 23, 1993; and London, Serpentine Gallery, June 30 August 15, 1993; exhibition catalogue, p. 134, illustrated. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Gordon Matta-Clark: You are the Measure, February 22 June 7, 2007; traveled to Los Angeles, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, September 16, 2007 January 27, 2008; and Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, February 2 May 4, 2008; exhibition catalogue, p. 195.

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Gordon Matta-Clark
A W-Hole House: Datum Cut
1973 Stucco and cut cardboard 18 1/2 x 26 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches (47 x 67.3 x 3.2 cm) Framed: 26 1/4 x 34 1/8 x 2 1/2 inches (66.7 x 86.7 x 6.4 cm)

A W-Hole House: Datum Cut demonstrates Gordon Matta-Clarks unique sculptural and architectural sensibility applied to graphic art. Here, he used an electric saw to make geometric incisions into a thick stack of white stucco and cardboard. The resulting cut drawing reflects the artists interest in the extraction of space in order to redefine and transform structural mass. This piece is part of a larger project titled A W-Hole House, in which the artist literally made cuts into the architectural structure of a building. A W-Hole House was his first officially sanctioned building cut in Europe and stands as a significant moment in the development of Matta-Clarks practice, leading to his iconic works Splitting and Bingo from 1974. In 1973 the Italian curator Paolo Minetti invited Matta-Clark to exhibit at Galleriaforma in Genoa, Italy. With the help of Minetti, the artist secured a simple one-story building on the grounds of a local abandoned factory slated for demolition to make one of his architectural cuts, resulting in the project A W-Hole House (the wordplay in the title emphasizes the coexistence of fullness and emptiness expressed in the project). The original interior of the building was designed in such a way that the central intersection of all the interior walls and doors was located directly under the midpoint of the roof. Taken by the disposition of space and capitalizing on the rationalized relationship between the roof and walls, Matta-Clark made two parallel horizontal cuts around the interior walls of the structure, dividing them into three bands. He then removed the square center of the terracotta tiled roof with the help of a crane, opening it up to shafts of outdoor light. The angles of the light beams were then cut into the wall bands, creating the illusion that the walls support the buildings weight. The wall fragments, referred to by MattaClark as Datum Cuts, and the roof cut, referred to as Roof Top Atrium, were initially installed at Galleriaforma, along with photos, drawings, and his unusual cut drawings. Although the sculptural objects from these incisions no longer exist, the remaining body of work, such as the cut drawing A W-Hole House: Datum Cut, expresses the intricacies and physicality of the project.
36 Siena, Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Gordon MattaClark, June 6 October 19, 2008; exhibition catalogue. Literature Corinne Diserens, Gordon Matta-Clark (London: Phaidon, 2003), p. 74, illustrated. New York, David Zwirner, Gordon Matta-Clark: A W-Hole House, January 10 February 16, 2002. Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Gordon Matta-Clark, July 4 October 16, 2006; exhibition catalogue, p. 266, illustrated. Exhibited Vienna, Generali Foundation, Reorganizing Structure by Drawing Through It, May 7 August 10, 1997; traveled to Barcelona, Museu dArt Contemporani, January March, 1998; New York, Institute for Art and Urban Resources at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, April August, 1998; and Mnster, Westflisches Landesmuseum fr Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, October, 1999 January, 2000; exhibition catalogue, pl. 403, illustrated. Provenance Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark

John McCracken
Liftoff
2009 Stainless steel 144 x 16 x 18 inches (365.8 x 40.6 x 45.7 cm)

A new outdoor work by John McCracken, Liftoff was created on the occasion of Art Basel 2009, where it can be seen installed on the Messeplatz. This work is a monolithic example of the artists minimalist, stainless steel sculptures. In keeping with the glossy, colored geometric forms he has best become known for, the surfaces of McCrackens steel sculptures are both, as the artist describes, materialist and transcendentalist, bordering on invisibility while simultaneously reflecting the landscape of their surroundings. As Eva Wittocx has noted, The nature of McCrackens polished steel pieces is in a certain sense different from actual mirrored glass...[His] steel volumes are one, and feel more like a single volume. Their steel surface differs from a glass panel. [They] catch images and immediately return them to their source. Like a range of optical instruments, the sculptures produce images of what can be seen around them. They appear to examine the surrounding space, turn it around and cut off a segment of it [and] absorb their surroundings1 Typically produced as commissions, McCracken defines the shape and dimensions of his outdoor steel sculptures for the specific locations chosen by the clients. Designed as outdoor sculptures, the works can withstand most environmental conditions, ranging from hot and arid to cold and damp climates, including close proximity to the ocean or exposure to snow and hail.
1

Magic, 2008, Stainless steel, 104 x 14 1/2 x 17 inches 264.2 x 36.8 x 43.2 cm, Saint Helena, California

Eva Wittocx, Variations on the Perfect Form, in Peter Doroshenko, et al., John McCracken. Exh. cat. (Ghent: Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst/SMAK, 2004), p. 31.

Provenance The artist

Bright, 2006, Stainless steel, 94 x 18 x 12 inches, 238.8 x 45.7 x 30.5 cm, East Hampton, New York

38

John McCracken
Plane (Red Plank)
1988-93 Resin, fiberglass, and plywood 121 1/2 x 18 1/4 x 1 1/2 inches (308.6 x 46.4 x 3.8 cm) Signed, titled, and dated on bottom

Since the mid-1960s, John McCracken has been a key figure in Minimalism. He developed his early sculptural work while studying painting at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Though he experimented with increasingly three-dimensional canvases, the artist began to produce objects made with industrial techniques and materials, including plywood, sprayed lacquer, and pigmented resin, creating the highly-reflective, smooth surfaces that he was to become known for. His earliest sculptures took the form of wall reliefs and free-standing geometric forms, and, in 1966, McCracken generated his signature sculptural form: the plank, a monochromatic rectangular board format that leans at an angle against the wall (the site of painting) while simultaneously entering into the three-dimensional realm and physical space of the viewer. With the plank, McCracken created a definitive work that addresses the primary concerns of Minimalism: the desire to reject the two-dimensionality of the picture plane for a new art that contextualizes the architecture in which it is presented and that references and includes the viewer. While the bold colors and shiny surfaces of his sculptures seem to reject the appearance of the handcrafted, McCracken has always made his work himself: his objects are products of a slow and laborious process of woodworking and finishing. For the artist, color, though inherently abstract, is used as a material, and the highly-saturated, monochromatic surfaces of his works are sanded and polished to produce such a high degree of reflectiveness that they simultaneously activate their surroundings and seem translucent. With their vibrantly colorful surfaces, these works seem to emanate light, recalling McCrackens 1960s association with the Southern California Light and Space movement. Thus, the objects gain a singular and almost otherworldly quality, appearing at once physical and immaterial. The artist has termed his sculptures single-things, things which refer to nothing outside themselves, but which at the same time refer, or relate to everything.1
1

Provenance Fred Hoffman Fine Art, Los Angeles (acquired directly from the artist) Jay Chiat Collection, New York David Zwirner, New York Exhibited Vienna, Hochschule fr angewandte Kunst, John McCracken, 1995; exhibition catalogue. Basel, Kunsthalle Basel, McCracken, September 24 November 12, 1995;

John McCracken, unpublished notebook entry, 1972.

exhibition catalogue, p. 65.

40

John McCracken
Fire
2007 Resin, fiberglass, and plywood Overall: 44 x 181 x 8 1/2 inches (111.8 x 459.7 x 21.6 cm) Each element: 44 x 6 x 8 1/2 inches (111.8 x 15.2 x 21.6 cm)

Created for documenta 12 (2007), this multi-part wall relief elaborates upon John McCrackens signature use of reflective color as pure material. Here, the artist presents a rhythmic progression of six evenly-spaced, rectangular components across a wall. The combination of different uniquely chromatic shades of red, blue, and green is presented in a chord-like sequence, thus creating an almost musical effect.

Provenance The artist Exhibited Kassel, Germany, Museum Fridericianum, documenta 12, June 16 September 23, 2007; exhibition catalogue.

42

Chris Ofili
The Naked Spirit of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars
2000 Acrylic, collage, glitter, resin, map pins, and elephant dung on canvas 96 x 72 inches (243.8 x 182.9 cm)

One in a series of ten paintings since 1996, The Naked Spirit of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars, combines signature elements of Chris Ofilis early painting practice: beadlike dots of paint (informed in part by cave paintings in Zimbabwe), collaged images from popular media, glitter, map pins, and elephant dung. Stripped of his usual red and yellow jumpsuit, the invented character of Captain Shit is pictured naked, formed by white dots of paint; his prodigious penis comprises one of the few elements of color. Based on a number of macho stars from blaxploitation films and comic book heroes like Luke Cage, Black Lightening, and the Black Panther, the Afrod Captain Shit engages stereotypes of the threatening, aggressive, and excessively virile black male. With his long nails, exaggerated red lips, and dung-ball belt buckle emblazoned with his initials, this slightly comical savior of the day (as Ofili has called him) seems equally poised for heroics or foolhardy failure. This dichotomy is heightened by the duality of Ofilis painterly presentation; when the lights go out, the painting glows phosphorescent (see detail image). From this view, the black starsa collage of gray paint and magazine cut-out eyes in normal light and a reference to the untold stories of black historyare literally brought to the foreground.

Provenance Gavin Browns enterprise, New York Private Collection, Miami Exhibited Omaha, Joslyn Art Museum, Fabulism, January 31 April 25, 2004; exhibition catalogue, n.p., illustrated. Literature Okwui Enwezor, Thelma Golden, et al., Chris Ofili (New York: Rizzoli, 2009), illustrated (forthcoming). 44

Chris Ofili
Mary Magdalene (Infinity)
2006 Bronze 43 x 29 x 27 inches (109.2 x 73.7 x 68.6 cm) Edition 3 of 3

Despite some very early work in three dimensions, Chris Ofili began seriously exploring the medium of sculpture for his Blue Rider exhibition in 2005. The artist is continually noted for his ability to synthesize his Catholic upbringing with an interest in hip-hop culture, as well as African and Western visual and historical traditions, to create a rich and original iconography. In Mary Magdalene (Infinity), the figure often associated with Christian sins of the flesh sits with her arms sharply bent over her head, a position that evokes the symbol for infinity. As Klaus Kertess has written: A seated Buddha, a whirling dervish, a pulp magazine pinup, this sculpture is as liquid as mercury, sensuous and wildly enigmatic. Mary Magdalenes slippery legs disappear into her ass to create, if not exactly infinity, endless revolutions of visual arousal.1
1

Klaus Kertess Just Desserts in Chris Ofili, Devils Pie (New York: David Zwirner; Gttingen: Steidl, 2008), n.p.

Provenance The artist Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Chris Ofili: Devils Pie, September 20 November 3, 2007; exhibition catalogue, n.p., illustrated.

46

Neo Rauch
Etappe
1998 Oil on linen 78 3/4 x 118 1/8 inches (200 x 300 cm)

Neo Rauch, who lives and works in Leipzig, is considered one of todays leading European painters. Rauchs profound commitment to the medium of painting is expressed in his large-scale canvases, in which the tradition of Eastern-Bloc figurative realist painting is melded with Western-style abstraction in an unparalleled painterly style. In many of his compositions, archetypal human figures engaged in manual labor or indeterminable tasks work against backdrops of mundane architecture, industrial settings, or bizarre and often barren landscapes: the atmosphere of Rauchs enigmatic paintings is thus suffused with a sense of uncanniness. Etappe (Stage) presents a moment of transition, as it depicts a scene in which a track-racing car is being maintained or repaired between stages of a race. However, in its formal and symbolic ambiguity, the imagery does not cohere into a straightforward unity, instead remaining enigmatic and dream-like. Here, Rauch incorporates motifs that recur in his oeuvre, including the colorful reams of cable that are being carried by the laborers in this canvas, which can perhaps be interpreted as streams of paint (Rauchs work often points to the activity of painting). As Bernhart Schwenk has noted, Rauchs paintings are still-lifes, symbols of picture-making; he creates, as it were, an emblemology of painting. To experience his [canvases] thus, the observer must free himself or herself from the compulsion to read a story into them, from the urge to decipher their meaning. Rauchs pictures precisely do not strive to establish connections with what has already been seen, with the familiar. If the observer succeeds in avoiding this trap, the pictures reveal a broad and variegated visual code. Although springing from personal and historical experience, they are self-sufficient creations, metaphorical constellations. They create only an exterior framework for a more profound content whose significance stretches far beyond the bounds of art.1
1

Exhibited Berlin, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Die Macht des Alters - Strategien der Meisterschaft, September 4 November 1, 1998; traveled to Bonn, Kunstmuseum Bonn, January 28 March 14; and Stuttgart, Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, July 2 August 29, 1999; exhibition catalogue, n.p., illustrated. Berlin, Galerie Eigen + Art, Neo Rauch, April 12, 1998 January 23, 1999;

Bernhart Schwenk, Night Work in Defence of Red, Yellow and Blue, in Neo Rauch: Randgebiet. Exh. cat. (Leipzig: Galerie fr Zeitgenssische Kunst, 2000), pp. 24-25.

traveled to Backnang, Germany, Galerie der Stadt Backnang, November 11, 1998 January 10, 1999; exhibition catalogue, p. 13, illustrated. Leipzig, Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst, Neo Rauch: Randgebiet, December

Provenance Galerie Eigen + Art, Berlin (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection 48

10, 2000 February 25, 2001; traveled to Munich, Haus der Kunst, March 16, 2001 May 20, 2001; and Zurich, Kunstalle, June 9, 2001 August 5, 2001; exhibition catalogue, p. 63, illustrated.

Neo Rauch
Krypta
2005 Oil on canvas 82 11/16 x 106 11/16 inches (210 x 271 cm)

Underscoring the deliberately obscure nature of Neo Rauchs symbolism, Krypta (Crypt) stands for the subterranean chamber that is built beneath the main floor of a church as a place for safekeeping, secret meetings, and burial purposes. In this work, figures are depicted executing ambiguous and seemingly uncoordinated tasks in an underground setting: among them, laborers are shown solemnly carrying what appears to be a relic of some kind out of a vault; armed soldiers are presented following orders; and an artistperhaps Rauch himselfis depicted at work on an unfinished canvas.

Provenance David Zwirner, New York (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, New York Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Neo Rauch: Renegaten, May 9 June 25, 2005; exhibition catalogue, n.p., illustrated. Montreal, Muse dArt Contemporain, Neo Rauch, September 14, 2006 January 7, 2007; exhibition catalogue, pp. 32-33, illustrated.

50

Daniel Richter
Halli Galli Polly
2004 Oil on canvas 132 x 102 3/4 inches (335.3 x 261 cm)

In the 1990s, Daniel Richter became known for his colorful abstract paintings, gaining critical success in 1999 when he introduced large-scale figurative paintings. His work is based on images taken from magazines, newspapers, and books, collaged by Richter into compositions rife with both latent and overt violence, political struggle, social transformation and public upheaval. Richters work exists in a long tradition of painting that references Goya, Gericault, Manet, Munch, Beckman, Ensor, Immendorf, and Kippenberger, among others. Not only is his work a testament to paintings vitality today, but it also reinforces the tradition of history painting. Halli Galli Polly shows a frightened horse standing on its back legs attacked by an eclectic group of animals; the Modernist architecture in the background serves as an absurd theatrical backdrop and suggests the possibility of performance. This painting was included in Richters 2004 exhibition at David Zwirner, which investigated notions of theater and performance as represented through circus motifs. The people and animals that populate these paintings are actorsboth aggressors and victimsin a conflict-ridden world; they are depicted in both natural and urban settings, often in a strange hybrid of the two. Often painted with very bright, almost fluorescent colors, Richters subjects are pulsing with nervous energy, and seem to have materialized from a chemical reaction taking place on the surface of the work. His canvases glow and glisten, engaging viewers in a push-and-pull process. Even in the more sparse compositions, there is always a sense of abundant activity. The more quiet spaces on his compositions reveal a co-existence of many different strokes, patches and spots, adding to the overall feeling of erupting energy. Richters work offers no clues or clear answers, nor does it make political statements. As specific as the sources of his images may be, his paintings transcend their original context. The artist often repeats his images, thereby revealing the interchangeability of images throughout history.
52 Provenance David Zwirner, New York (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, New York Exhibited Toronto, The Power Plant, Daniel Richter: Pink Flag White Horse, March 27 May 23, 2004; traveled to Vancouver, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia, October 8 December 5, 2004; and Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, June 25 September 10, 2005; exhibition catalogue, p. 33, illustrated. New York, David Zwirner, Daniel Richter: The Morning After, May 10 June 19, 2004. Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Daniel Richter. Die Palette 1995-2007, May 4 August 6, 2007; traveled to The Hague, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, November 10, 2007 March 23, 2008; Malaga, Centro de Arte Contemporneo de Malaga, April 11 July 13, 2008; and Denver, Denver Art Museum, October 4, 2008 January 11, 2009; exhibition catalogue, pp. 130-131, illustrated.

Thomas Ruff
d.p.b. 01
1999/2000 C-Print B: 51 3/16 x 65 inches (130 x 165 cm) Edition 1 of 5

This work belongs to Thomas Ruffs photographic series, l.m.v.d.r., 1999-2001, informed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohes architecture. The series developed out of a request by curator Julian Heynen at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, who asked Ruff to prepare an exhibition of architectural photographs of the homes Mies van der Rohe built between 1927 and 1930. The exhibition was to commemorate the reopening of Haus Lange and Haus Esters (residential villas in Krefeld, Germany, designed by the architect), which are currently used as exhibition venues for contemporary art. Ruff studied the architecture, along with well-known historical photographs of the buildings and developed his own photographic approach to the architects work. After seeing Ruffs photographs exhibited in Krefeld, curator Terence Riley, who was preparing a retrospective of Mies van der Rohes architecture up to 1938 for The Museum of Modern Art in New York, asked Ruff to photograph all of the architects existing buildings before 1938 for the exhibition Mies in Berlin (2001). d.p.b. 01 documents Mies van der Rohes Barcelona Pavilion, the temporary building he designed for the 1929 International Exposition of Barcelona. In producing the series, Ruff worked in several different modes: straight architectural shots, stereoscopic photographs, interior photographs, and computer manipulated images, some of which used archival images. In describing his working process, the artist has written, I have tried to do a contemporary art exhibition about architecture from the past, using every technique available to contemporary photography. The computer is a great new tool for photography, an extension of the darkroom, allowing you to alter color, resolution, parts of the image, or even the whole thing. For the Krefeld show I was playing with issues surrounding the documentary aspects of architectural photography. What was in front of the camera is not what you see in the images, because I altered about 90 percent of them. In some I took out the color and made a new sky. In one there appears to be a ghost (is it Mies?), which was originally a bad exposure that I guided into an intention, lets say. The curtain in the Barcelona Pavilion is red, but I wondered what would happen if it were blue or green. How might this change the reception of Miess architecture? The main idea was to create a kind of resum of the photographic representations of Miess buildings and at the same time demonstrate that the reception of his work was hugely indebted to a relatively small number of photographs.1
1

Provenance David Zwirner, New York (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, New York Exhibited New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Mies in Berlin, June 21 September 11, 2001; traveled to Berlin, Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz, December 14, 2001 March 10, 2002; and Barcelona, Fundacin La Caixa, July 30 September 29, 2002; exhibition catalogue. Krefeld, Germany, Museum Haus Lange - Haus Esters, l.m.v.d.r. - Thomas Ruff, May 18 September 17, 2000; exhibition catalogue, n.p., illustrated. Literature Mark Coetzee, Not Afraid: Rubell Family Collection (London: Phaidon, 2004), p. 207, illustrated Matthias Winzen, Thomas Ruff: 1979 to the Present (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Knig, 2001), p. 243, illustrated.

Thomas Ruff, A thousand words: Thomas Ruff Talks about L.M.V.D.R. Artforum, (Summer 2001).

54

Thomas Ruff
zycles 4068
2009 Inkjet on canvas 80 11/16 x 70 7/8 inches (205 x 180 cm)

Thomas Ruffs work examines the technical and conceptual possibilities of photography. Throughout his practice, attention is placed on what is embedded beneath the surface of the image, capturing, and at the same time questioning, the basic essence of photography as a medium as well as a tool of visual experience. Ruff, as Valeria Liebermann points out, resists the notion that a photographic image constitutes a straight reflection of reality, and at the same time seeks to exploit the manipulative character of the medium.1 His approach is, for the most part scientific, which is evident in his latest series zycles, which show curved lines that form complex abstract and seemingly threedimensional surfaces. Ruffs zycles originate in mathematics (zycles refer, for instance to cycloids, the mathematical curves obtained by rolling one curve along a second, fixed curve) and physics. As a starting point, Ruff referred to books on these subjects, including treatises on electro-magnetism by the influential Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell2 (1831-1879), in which magnetic fields are depicted in copperplate engravings. Ruff translates these delicate, curved traceries into three-dimensional space with the use of a 3D computer program, which turns algebraic formulae into intricate curving structures. The artist then records the computer-generated imagery by taking screen grabs to obtain still images, which he then prints onto canvas, giving the zycles, as Valentina Sonzogni notes, an aura and semblance of unicity in sharp contrast to their mechanical mode of production. This series of works is far removed from the traditional photographic medium: the images cannot be traced back to analog photographic techniques that seek to represent reality.3
1 2

Valeria Liebermann, Thomas Ruff (London: Essor Gallery, 2001), n.p. Maxwell, moreover, is credited with having discovered (in 1861) how color photographs could be formed using red, green, and blue filters, thus developing the first method of making color photographs . Valentina Sonzogni, zycles, in Thomas Ruff. Exh. cat. (Milan: Skira, 2009), p. 82.

Provenance The artist 56

Fred Sandback
Untitled (Fourth of Ten Corner Constructions)
1983 Maroon and black acrylic yarn 97 1/4 x 98 3/4 x 70 inches (247 x 250.8 x 177.8 cm)

Fred Sandbacks sculptures outline planes and volumes in space. Though he employed metal wire and elastic cord early in his career, the artist soon dispensed with mass and weight by using acrylic yarn to create works that address their physical surroundings, the pedestrian space, as Sandback called it, of everyday life. By stretching lengths of yarn horizontally, vertically, or diagonally at different scales and in varied configurations, the artist developed a singular body of work that elaborated on the phenomenological experience of space and volume with unwavering consistency and ingenuity. Here, Sandback presents a corner construction of maroon and black lengths of yarn arranged in u-shaped configurations (one of the artists signature forms) at different depths. By creating the illusion of shifting planes in space, this work exemplifies the artists experiments with the physical experience of volume and void. Moreover, this sculpture relates to the radical work of Russian constructivists, such as Vladimir Tatlin, whose corner reliefs of 1915-16 projected the work of art into the real space of the viewer. Untitled (Third of Ten Corner Constructions), 1983, with similar configuration and color (reversed) is in the collection of the Dia Art Foundation, New York.

Provenance The Estate of Fred Sandback Lawrence Markey Gallery, New York Zwirner & Wirth, New York Private Collection, New York Exhibited New York, Zwirner & Wirth, Fred Sandback (exhibition held in conjunction with Lawrence Markey, New York), April 1 May 1, 2004; exhibition catalogue, p. 19, illustrated. Long Island City, New York, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, Other Voices, Other Rooms, April 19 July 28, 2009. Literature John Rajchman, Fred Sandback. Exh. cat. (New York: David Zwirner; Gttingen: Steidl, 2009), fig. 33, p. 115, illustrated (installation view, Zwirner & Wirth, New York, 2004).

58

Fred Sandback
Untitled (Ten-part Vertical Construction)
1991 Black, white, tan and blue acrylic yarn Dimensions vary with each installation

Untitled (Ten-part Vertical Construction), is configured from ten elements, each composed from two strands of acrylic yarn; three elements are black, three elements are white, two elements are tan, and two elements are blue. The ten elements are all stretched vertically from floor to ceiling in perpendicular and parallel configurations that relate to the surrounding walls of the exhibition space. The sculptures dimensions are variable, but the arrangement and proportional relationships remain fixed. This construction relates to such large-scale works by Fred Sandback as Broadway Boogie Woogie (Sculptural Study, Twenty-eight Part Vertical Construction), 1991/2006, composed from twenty-eight vertical lengths of red, blue, and yellow yarn, of which Pamela M. Lee noted, effectively divides and multiplies the viewers field of vision through the logic of parallax; the bodys coordination in space thus dramatizes the ambivalent relation to interior and exterior Sandback claimed for his work. Once materialized in a galleryonce made into a thing continuous with the bodys phenomenal orbitthe work vehemently rebuffs the idea that Sandbacks art [] is reducible to a systematic geometry.1
1

Pamela M. Lee, The Materialist, in Fred Sandback. Exh. cat. (New York: Zwirner & Wirth, 2007), n.p.

Provenance Estate of Fred Sandback Exhibited New York, Lawrence Markey Gallery, Fred Sandback: Ten-part Vertical Construction, October 1 December 31, 1991. Paris, Galerie Nelson-Freeman, Fred Sandback, June 21 September 12, 2008. New York, David Zwirner, Fred Sandback (concurrent with Fred Sandback at Zwirner & Wirth, New York), January 9 February 14, 2009; exhibition catalogue, p. 23, illustrated (installation view), and p. 67, illustrated. Literature Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Yve-Alain Bois, Thomas McEvilley, Thierry Davila, et al., Fred Sandback. Exh. cat. (Vaduz: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein/Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2005), p. 288, illustrated.

60

Al Taylor
Untitled (Thirds)
1993 Hot-rolled steel, tin cans, and wire 68 1/4 x 58 1/4 x 26 3/4 inches (173.4 x 148 x 67.9 cm)

Al Taylor was an artist whose intimate view of the world was explored using any media available. Constantly observing whatever was around him, from pet stains on urban streets to Styrofoam floats washed up on a Hawaiian beach, he deftly abstracted simple objects and imagery into a unique body of work that is both complex and humorous. Only 51 at the time of his death in 1999, the artist worked as a painter and draftsman until the mid-1980s, when he began constructing threedimensional pieces to expand the pictorial plane. Approaching his three-dimensional work and drawing with the same whimsical intensity, he willfully dismissed any distinction between these mediumshe considered his constructions to be a kind of drawing in space. Taylor ultimately sought to expand the possibilities of vision by creating new ways of experiencing and envisioning space, and these works provide an insight into the artists thoughts and his investigations of perception across several dimensions. Taylor fashioned his constructions out of unconventional materials, incorporating simple elements such as wooden broomsticks, wire, carpentry remnants, hula hoops, and other found objects into delicate constructions that offered a multitude of distinct viewpoints. His drawings, moreover, would often inspire the development of these three-dimensional constructions, which the artist would create in order to see more. These works would subsequently form the basis of further explorations on paper, which would document the new visual perspectives that were opened up through this process [see, for example, fig. 1]. In his own words, Taylor noted, This work isnt at all about sculptural concerns; it comes from a flatter set of traditions. What I am really after is finding a way to make a group of drawings that you can look around. Like a pool player, I want to have all the angles covered.1 In the history of contemporary art, Taylor is not easily assimilated into any exclusive movement or school, though Marcel Duchamp is perhaps the most significant touchstone for his work. Taylors work was inspired by a range of influences, that included ideas from physics and mathematics about depth, volume, and measurement; art historical precedents such as the sculptures of Matisse and the time-lapse photography of EtienneJules Marey; everyday phenomena that the artist noticed on the street; and personal references. Taylor drew upon these scientific and cultural influences in order to create arbitrary rules that were set up to be broken, providing unexpectedand often humorousways to investigate and research vision.
62

Untitled (Thirds) relates to a group of works from 1993-1994 which Taylor called his Can Studys [sic.]. Constructed from store-bought tin food cans (perhaps referencing Andy Warhols and Jasper Johnss use of cans in their work); wire (which Taylor employed more as a means to draw in space than as a supportive material); and, in some cases, hot-rolled steel (a pliable material used here to project the cans into space), these works combine simple materials to create playfully complex constructions. In this instance, Taylor has created a sequence of connecting, triangular outlines, which are further mirrored and amplified in shadow, thus creating multiple perspectives.
1

From an unpublished artists statement, July 1990.

Provenance The Estate of Al Taylor

Fig. 1: Thirds, 1993. Pencil on paper 29 3/8 x 20 11/16 inches (74.6 x 52.5 cm)

Al Taylor
Untitled (100% Hawaiian)
1994 Graphite and gouache on paper 31 3/4 x 22 7/8 inches (80.6 x 58.1 cm) Signed and dated recto

Like Untitled (Thirds), 1993 (shown on the previous pages), this drawing relates to Al Taylors Can Studys [sic.], a group of works from 1993 to 1994 constructed from store-bought food cans that Taylor suspended in the air and projected into space using wire and metal. Here, Taylor presents a rendering in graphite and gouache of two cans stripped of their paper labels, their lids bent open. The cans appear to be levitating in space, though Taylor suggests they are supported by the lines of metal wire that extend outwards from them in four directions. This work presents a nuanced study not only of depth and surface, but also of light and shadow, and exemplifies the artists experiments in presenting unique visual phenomena. Moreover, the words 100% Hawaiian, inscribed on the bottom of one of the cans, illustrate Taylors charictaristically playful use of language.

Provenance Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, Germany

64

Luc Tuymans
The Heritage V
1996 Oil on canvas 21 1/8 x 29 inches (53.5 x 75 cm)

Created for his 1996 exhibition at David Zwirner, Luc Tuymanss Heritage series presents familiar, almost stereotypical, images of American life: Mount Rushmore, baseball caps, an American flag, a working class citizen, a birthday cake, among others. Rather than being reassuring in their familiarity, the artists treatment of these images, emphasized by his unusual palette, transforms them into unsettling visions. Following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Tuymans became particularly interested in the prevailing mood he perceived in the United States a feeling of uncertainty and a sense of loss. For the Belgian artist, this act of terrorism from within the countrys borders revealed a vulnerability, both physical and psychological, entirely new to Americans. One of ten works from this series is The Heritage V, which depicts the front windshield of a car presumably parked in its driveway. Tuymanss close cropping and the absence of a driver deprives the common scene of context and, thus, of personal attachment, highlighting feelings of alienation and distance. The artists blue palette imparts a dark, somber mood, which arouses a potentially disturbing discourse.

Provenance David Zwirner, New York (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, New York Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Luc Tuymans: The Heritage, September 20 October 19, 1996. Ghent, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst/SMAK, Raoul De Keyser - Luc Tuymans: Schilderijen Tekeningen, February 3 March 25, 2001; exhibition catalogue, p. 52, illustrated. London, Tate Modern, Luc Tuymans, June 23 September 26, 2004; traveled to Dsseldorf, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, October 16, 2004 January 16, 2005; exhibition catalogue, pp. 20, 97, and pl. 56, illustrated. Literature Ulrich Loock, et al., Luc Tuymans (London: Phaidon, 2003), p. 164, illustrated.

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Luc Tuymans
Dirt Road
2003 Oil on canvas 60 7/16 x 50 x 1 9/16 inches (153.5 x 127 x 4 cm) Signed and dated verso

Luc Tuymans creates hauntingly vacant images which often focus, although not explicitly, on singular historical events. Through subtle details and disconnected fragments, his paintings establish a generalized sensation rather than a specific visual representation. The artists trademark muted palette, his choice of subject matter, and his general avoidance of spectacle and narrative, have resulted in compellingly deceptive images which frequently explore the darker sides of human behavior. Tuymans confronts the limitations of representation in the face of events from historysuch as the Holocaust, war, racism, terrorism, and other senseless violencethrough the imagery of memory. Memory, by definition, is subjective, and its imagery unrecordable by technological means, and proves to be a vehicle for Tuymans to approach his difficult subject matter. His search for images that communicate our collective memory and conscience is the foundation for his practice and can be identified in Dirt Road. The somber atmosphere of this painting, expressed in monochromatic gray tones, saturated emptiness, and shadowy dislocation, is informed by the effects of 9/11. The artist, living in the United States during the time, considers the powerful images that came out of this catastrophic event to represent one of the most stunning examples of collective memory to date. This painting, like many works in Tuymanss oeuvre, although charged with historical, social, political, and biographical context, finds its meaning in the visually subtle and abstract details which inform and shape memory.

Provenance David Zwirner, New York (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Fortune, April 24 May 21, 2003.

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Christopher Williams
Pacific Sea Nettle, Chrysaora Melanaster, Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, 100 Aquarium Way, Long Beach, California, July 9th, 2008
2009 Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper Framed: 28 3/4 x 28 1/4 x 1 1/2 inches (73 x 71.8 x 3.8 cm) Paper: 14 x 14 inches (35.6 x 35.6 cm) Image: 13 x 13 inches (33 x 33 cm) Edition of 10 + 4 AP

In the 1970s, Christopher Williams studied at the California Institute of the Arts under the first wave of West Coast conceptual artists, including John Baldessari and Douglas Huebler, only to become one of his generations leading conceptualists. Williamss work is a critical investigation of the medium of photography and, more broadly, the vicissitudes of industrial culture, in particular its structures of representation and classification. Using the process of reproduction as a point of entry, the artist manipulates the conventions of advertising, the superficiality of surface, and, ultimately, the history of Modernism. Deeply political, historical, and sometimes personal, the photographs are meant to evoke a subtle shift in our perception by questioning the communication mechanisms and aesthetic conventions that influence our understanding of reality. In this new work, Williams presents an image of a jellyfish (a Pacific sea nettle, or Chrysaora Melanaster), shown floating in the water of the Long Beach Aquarium, near Los Angeles. The same jellyfish, or species, was documented by the artist in the past, in the 1990s and in 2004, in black and white. The image is re-visited here in vivid color. Writing about these photographs, Bennett Simpson noted, The creatures folds and tentacles give off a silver radiance that pushes toward abstraction. The photograph appears to be solarized. In a speech at his opening in New York, Williams described the animals appeal. It has no brain. It has no skeleton. It has no stomach, mouth, or genitals. It almost has no form. Pictures of puppies demand affection; pictures of lions require fear. Within the structure of Williamss exhibition, where rationality and context grind out their dust, the jellyfishs sufficiency performed like an unconscious. Here was an animal Williams could photograph because it asked for nothing. It was already complete, as an image.
1

Bennett Simpson, What Does the Jellyfish Want? Bennett Simpson on the art of Christopher Williams, in Artforum (April 2006), p. 211.

Provenance The artist

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Christopher Williams
Polaroid 660 [promotional non functional] with completely transparent plastic housing. Produced for promotional use for display and demonstration purposes. Lens: 116mm f/11, single-element plastic Automatic focus; uses Polaroid Sonar AF system. Minimum focus: 3ft. Electronic shutter: range 1/4-1/200 sec. programmed automatic exposure system; built-in electronic flash, with automatic flash, exposure for all pictures. Camera was introduced 1981 with an original product price of $95 and worked with the Polaroid 600 Film family which all have the following characteristics in common: ASA 600 film speed, self-developing, packaged 10 prints to a pack including a self-contained battery to power camera. Actual image area: 3 1/8 x 3 1/8 [7.9 x 7.9] Fotostudio Axel Gnad, Dssseldorf February 09, 2009
2009 Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper Framed: 33 5/8 x 37 1/8 x 1 1/2 inches (85.4 x 94.3 x 3.8 cm) Paper: 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm) Image: 18 x 21 7/8 inches (45.7 x 55.6 cm) Edition of 10 + 4 AP

As the descriptive title suggests, this photograph, a new work by the artist, relates to a number of other works by Christopher Williams that document cameras, lenses, and other photographic mechanisms. The artists ongoing practice is engaged with examining the historical, discursive, and material conditions of photography. Here, the artist presents a promotional model of a Polaroid 660 camera, whose transparent housing displays its interior mechanical structure. For the artist, the camera represents a quintessentially industrial object; with its numerous working parts, it functions as a kind of miniature factory for light.
Provenance The artist

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Yan Pei-Ming
U.S. Dollars
2008 Watercolor on paper 6 sheets, each: 60 7/16 x 109 7/8 inches (153.5 x 279 cm)

Best known for his larger-than-life self portraits, as well as paintings of political and cultural icons such as Mao Tse-Tung and Bruce Lee, Yan Pei-Ming has emerged in recent years as one of the most dynamic and experimental Chinese painters. Before moving from his native Shanghai to France in 1980, Yan Pei-Ming painted landscapes and portraits of peasant workers. Since then, his subjects have included anonymous figures, his father, Buddha, and a series of prostitutes, among others, all concurrent with an on-going body of self-portraits. Although the genre of portraiture is not commonly encountered in Chinese art, it manifests with both Eastern and Western sensibilities in Yan Pei-Mings works. His expressive style and controlled palette reflect a connection to the aesthetic and cultural climate of China as well as the influence of 20th-century American Conceptual art. With a mastered economy of marks, he delineates his compositions with broad, sweeping gestures and visible drips, resulting in images that dissolve into near-abstraction at close view. U.S. Dollars evokes such art historical precedents as Andy Warhol, while it also addresses the global relevance of the American dollar. This work is comprised of a grid of six watercolors of paper bills (each with its corresponding American President) in denominations of one to one hundred, thus functioning as portraits within portraits.

Provenance The artist Exhibited San Francisco, San Francisco Art Institute, Yan Pei-Ming: YES!, February 20 May 23, 2009.

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Lisa Yuskavage
Violet Curtain
2002 Oil on panel 53 1/4 x 52 x 2 inches (135.3 x 132.1 x 5.1 cm) Signed and dated verso

Lisa Yuskavages paintings are both unsettling and seductive. Unlike the artists signature style of provocative female nudes, Violet Curtain is an unusual work for the artist in its presentation of a quiet portrait of a clothed woman behind a white table; a violet curtain hangs in the background. The womans pensive eyes fall in the direction of a bouquet of pink flowers in a white vase and a green teapot on the table positioned to the right of her. The image seems to suggest that the woman is in a moment of private introspection; the violet curtain evokes a meditative, warm quality which corresponds to the womans contemplative gesture. Yuskavages ongoing engagement with the history of painting and the representation of the female is especially evident in Violet Curtain, which is inspired by douard Manets masterpiece Bar at the FoliesBergre (1882).

Provenance greengrassi, London (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, London Exhibited London, Royal Academy of Arts, Lisa Yuskavage at The Galleries Show, September 14 October 12, 2002.

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Lisa Yuskavage
Snowman
2008 Oil on linen 72 x 57 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (182.9 x 146.1 x 3.8 cm) Signed and dated verso

Like many of Lisa Yuskavages figurative paintings, Snowman explores a complex psychological directionspecifically, symbiotic relationships and the feminine psyche. Here, Yuskavage presents a naked baby within a fantasy winter landscape setting; the spherical shape of a snowman emerges from the cloudy sky. The artists signature pneumatic female nude, although not as pronounced as in most of her paintings, resides in the bleak icy-gray background. The pregnant female, barely noticeable, blends into the washy Turner-like cloud formations, suggesting a comparison between the overpowering unpredictability of nature and the lasciviousness of the female body. Stark branches of bare trees cut across the canvas, dividing the windswept sky from the ominous landscape. The contrast between the color of the baby, as well as the fraction of yellow and tangerine light bursting through the atmospheric clouds in relationship to the rest of the paintings grayscale, creates an illusionistic space which seems to be lit from within. Yuskavages works revisit the classic painterly techniques of perspective, coloring, light, and texture. Influenced in part by images that depict power struggles, including Baroque sculptures (specifically those of Gianlorenzo Bernini) and Giorgio de Chiricos late Gladiator paintings, her figures hover or climb upon one another, caught in embraces that appear to shift between tenderness and violence. Within this paradoxical relationship, it is difficult to decipher what is real and what is imagined, what is weighted and what is weightless, and what is made of paint and what transcends the medium entirely. Yuskavages subtle degrees of fiction and representation culminate in questionable, unsettling quasi-realities.

Provenance The artist Exhibited New York, David Zwirner, Lisa Yuskavage, February 19 March 28, 2009.

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Cover image: Neo Rauch, Etappe, 1998 Oil on linen, 78 3/4 x 118 1/8 inches (200 x 300 cm)

For more information on works by Fred Sandback and Al Taylor, please contact Kristine Bell or Greg Lulay at 212 517 8677 For all other artists, contact David Zwirner at 212 727 2070