ANGEL ART COMMITTEE
Beth Rudin DeWoody // Beth Swofford // Brian Butler // Bryan Lourd
Darren Star // Dean Anes // Deborah Irmas // Deborah McLeod
Domenica Dunlap // Hamilton South // Honor Fraser
Joanne Heyler // John McIlwee // Kevin Huvane // Kristin Rey
Larry Gagosian // Maria Bell // Michael Kohn // Michael Maloney Michael Rubel // Shaun Caley Regen // Thao Nguyen // Tom Ford
LOT L1 THOMAS HOUSEAGO / Landscape Mask (LA dusk), 2011
Tuf-cal hemp, iron rebar, graphite, charcoal
31.5 x 26.5 x 2.25 in. (80 x 67.3 x 5.7 cm.)
Auction estimate: $50,000
Gift of the artist and L+M Arts
Thomas Houseago was born in Leeds, England, in 1972. He studied at the St. Martin's College of Art and De Ateliers in Amsterdam. He lived and worked for several years in Brussels before moving to Los Angeles. Houseago is a sculptor whose powerful work looks back at the past and yet remains utterly contemporary. He often works in traditional materials--bronze, wood, plaster--mediums that were considered outdated, as he began his career in the early nineties, as the Young British Artists were at the height of their influence. Houseago remained committed to exploring the domain of figuration through the methods of molding, carving, and casting. His work often takes the form of monumental figures, in both classic and primitive poses, but the way in which they are fashioned is where they become totally new. Houseago plays a formal game, manipulating volume, relief, anatomy, and a tension between dimensions. His works often reveal their making as well, with their skeletons of iron bars exposed, raw edges from jigsaw cuts, and plaster and hemp slathered on the forms. They are sensually and crudely constructed, as if the artist, who is their maker, is also in a physical battle with these figures. In the end, however, he gives new life to these classic forms. Houseago's work is represented in many institutional collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami; and the Zabludowicz Collection, London. This illustration represents the work in progress. Please visit angelartauction.org to view the completed work.
LOT L2 RICHARD MISRACH / Untitled, 2008
Archival Pigment Print
Edition 1/5
50 3/4 x 90 1/4 in. (129 x 229 cm.), print size
Auction estimate: $55,000
Gift of the artist and Marc Selwyn Fine Art
One of the first artists to explore the possibilities of large-scale color prints in the early 1970's, Richard Misrach is regarded as one of the most influential and internationally recognized photographers working today. His work addresses political, cultural, and environmental issues with a focus on the intersection of man and the natural landscape. The Earth and its topography are prevalent in the artist's work. Untitled, 2008 is part of a series in which Misrach took photographs from a single precise location on the front porch of his home on the California coast using the same lens and the same perspective, thereby fixing variables and letting "the spectacle of weather and light become (his) subject." Misrach's work is represented in over fifty institutional collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musee National d'Art Moderne, LACMA, and MOMA. He is the recipient of numerous awards in the arts, including four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
In 2002 he was given the Kulturpreis for Lifetime Achievement in Photography by the German Society for Photography, and in 2008 the Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Fine Art Photography.
LOT L3 ED RUSCHA / IF, 2011
Acrylic on museum board paper
14 ½ x 11 3/8 in. (36.8 x 28.9 cm.), framed
Auction estimate: $45,000
Gift of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
Winning bidder agrees to extend first right of refusal to artist and Gagosian
Since the 1960's, Ed Ruscha has brought attention to the locations, signs, and architecture common to America, and particularly to his hometown of Los Angeles. Ruscha's vast artistic practice embraces painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, bookmaking, filmmaking, and graphic design. In classic form, the letters in IF are treated as figures in a landscape and have an acoustic component often found in the artist's works, such as City, BOSS, and OOF. Ruscha's multifaceted painting uses a deadpan pictorial style to apply cinematic and typographical codes, with his best known works those reproducing words, aphorisms, puns, or anagrams. Such content not only reveals the artist's subtle humor, but also his definitive link to his artistic forbearer, Marcel Duchamp. Edward Ruscha (b. 1937 Omaha, Nebraska) moved to Los Angeles in 1956, where he studied at Chouinard Art Institute. Ruscha is one of the most exhibited living artists today. In 2005, Ruscha represented the United States at the 51st Venice Biennale. Ruscha points out the personal significance of the word "if" in a recent interview with Anthony Kiedis: Pacific Standard Time: Anthony Kiedis Celebrates Ed Ruscha
LOT L4° LARI PITTMAN / Untitled # 3, 2011
Cel-vinyl, acrylic on gesso over wood panel
24 1/2 x 21 in. ( 62.2 x 53.3 cm. ),framed
Auction estimate: $65,000
Lari Pittman is a painter whose work incorporates a cacophony of color, the blending of figuration and abstraction, an intricate and multi-faceted surface, and an expansive and oscillating image field to create an idiosyncratic visual vocabulary rooted in, and in constant discourse with, the history of painting. Pittman has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including the Los Angeles Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; and ICA, London. Pittman has also been awarded the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts Fellowship Grant in Painting, NEA Fellowship Grants in Painting, and the Skowhegan Medal for Painting. A new monograph on his work was recently published by Rizzoli. Pittman lives and works in Los Angeles and is represented by Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
LOT L5 JENNIFER STEINKAMP / Cultured, 2011
Digital projection
Size variable, 8-12 feet high
Auction estimate: $50,000
Gift of the artist and ACME., Los Angeles
Jennifer Steinkamp, a Los Angeles-based artist, uses projected digital animations to explore ideas about architectural space, motion, and phenomenological perception. Her works examine of the interplay between actual space and illusionistic space. According to Steinkamp, "I found I could dematerialize architecture by combining light, space and movement." Cultured, 2011 is the first work to be exhibited from a dynamic new series featuring sumptuous strands of pearls intertwined and interacting in rhythmic motion. The series may be seen this fall at the PROSPECT.2 BIENNIAL in New Orleans. Steinkamp's work can be seen in public collections worldwide, including LACMA, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Hammer Museum, The Istanbul Modern in Turkey, the Albright-Knox Gallery, and the Towada Art Center in Japan, as well as important private collections worldwide. The winning bidder receives the artwork with its computer and video projection equipment.
LOT L6 ROBERT THERRIEN / No title (Snowman with headache), 2007-11
Wall-mounted sculpture: enamel paint on metal
38 1/2 x 13 1/2 x 3 3/4 in. (97.8 x 34.3 x 9.5 cm.)
Auction estimate: $65,000
Gift of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
Robert Therrien's simplification of form and exaggeration of scale allows viewers to experience the everyday object as something extraordinary. Therrien's large-scale objects continue a discourse originating in the Pop and Minimal art movements of the 1960's. The ambiguity between representation and abstraction that sometimes characterizes his work becomes most evident in his drawings (which directly inform his sculptures), where parts of cartoons (such as snowmen, feet, or duckbills) are reduced to their most simplified elements. The snowman is one of the artist's most well-known and iconic images. Robert Therrien (b. 1947, in Chicago) has been living and working in Los Angeles since 1971. His work has been the subject of many solo exhibitions, including shows at MOCA, Los Angeles; LACMA; and the Museum Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Since 2009, Therrien's work has been part of the "Artist Rooms" at the Tate Modern, London, and are currently on view at Tate Liverpool. The Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA is currently showing a large installation of Therrien works from the permanent collection.
LOT L7 GLENN KAINO / The Grand Finale feat. Glenn-W-A, 2010
Video (DVD)
Edition of 5 + 1AP
Running time 00:05:46:06
Auction estimate: $34,000
Gift of the artist and Honor Fraser Gallery
Glenn Kaino (b. 1972, Los Angeles) received his BFA from the University of California, Irvine, and his MFA from the University of California, San Diego. His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at venues such as LA ART, Los Angeles; Performa09, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; REDCAT, Los Angeles; and ArtPace, San Antonio. Kaino's work has also been included in group exhibitions at institutions around the world, including the Museum der Moderne Mochsberg, Salzburg, Germany; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach; the Studio Museum in Harlem; and the Bronx Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2004, his work was included in the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art and the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Kaino has also been involved in major music, television, and digital media projects and has created various experimental platforms for the production and dissemination of contemporary art. Most recently, he cofounded The Mistake Room, an itinerant platform for exhibitions, publications, and situation-specific artist projects. Kaino currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
LOT L8 MARK BRADFORD / Magic, 2010
Mixed media on wood panel
36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 61 cm.), framed
Auction estimate: $45,000
Gift of the artist and courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Mark Bradford's mural-sized abstract collages and installations are assembled from signage, advertisements and posters which he layers with paint, twine, and glue, and then repeatedly sands down. An LA native, his installations, sculptures and videos both celebrate and critique the communities of South Central Los Angeles. In 2009 the 49-year-old artist was named a MacArthur Fellow, propelling his career to greater heights. Mark Bradford's work has appeared in the Whitney Biennial, and exhibited widely. His works are held in major collections such as the Broad Art Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Collection. A major 10-year survey of his work opened at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio in May 2010 and has traveled to the ICA, Boston, MCA Chicago and will open at the Dallas Art Museum October 16, 2011–January 15, 2012, before completing its tour at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
LOT L9 JOEL MORRISON / Untitled (3-Dimensional Drawing with a Fluorescent Light Bulb), 2011
Wall-mounted cast stainless steel sculpture
66 1/2 x 41.5 x 30 in. (168.9 x 105.4 x 76.2 cm.)
Auction estimate: $35,000
Gift of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
Joel Morrison's composite sculptures, skillfully cast in highly reflective stainless steel, are at once in dialogue with the conceptual light installations of Flavin and Turrell, as well as the tradition of Duchamp's ready-mades. Morrison applies the Minimalist concept of a conditional requirement for an object's role as art, specifying that light must be present and at play in the reflective surfaces of his sculpture. His playful interpretation of the cannons of Art History, and the complex rhetoric they bring, allows Morrison to bring new understanding to these fundamental concepts of contemporary art. In 2006, he was a featured artist in the California Biennial held at the Orange County Museum of Art, as well as a participant in the critically acclaimed Thing exhibition at the Hammer Museum. His numerous other group and solo exhibitions have been at venues throughout the world, including the Kolbe Museum, Berlin; Santa Monica Museum of Art; Art Forum, Berlin; and the Haus Am Waldsee Museum, Berlin. His most recent museum show was one of the "Six Solos" shows at the Wexner Center. This detail represents the work in progress. Please visit angelartauction.org to view the completed work.
LOT L10 RAYMOND PETTIBON / WITH HERBIE FLETCHER / No Title (A surfer compelled...), 2011
Functional longboard, fabricated from polyurethane foam, wood, polyester resin, fiberglass, ink
Unique with 2 Artist's Proofs
114 x 22 1/2 in. (289.6 x 57.2 cm.)
Starting Bid: $25,000
Gift of Raymond Pettibon and Herbie Fletcher
Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Raymond Pettibon's drawings explore the spectrum of American culture. His early work was devoted to handmade fan zines and album covers or flyers for the South Bay's punk rock music scene. His work is generally characterized as ink on paper drawings, sometimes mixed with gouache, acrylic, watercolor and collage, incorporating texts that are original or extrapolated from literature and other sources, carefully rewritten to the artist's devices and often deals with the landscape of war, politics, popular culture, art, literature, sports, religion, and sexuality. Pettibon has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain. Pettibon lives and works in Los Angeles and is represented by Regen Projects, Los Angeles, where he will have a solo exhibition of new works at the gallery on November 5 through December 22, 2011.
LOT L11 MIKE KELLEY / Double Double Sunset, 2005
Chromogenic print
37 3/4 x 59 ½ in. (95.9 x 151.1 cm.) each
75 1/2 x 59 ½ in. (191.8 x 151.1 cm.) overall
Auction estimate: $55,000
Gift of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
Mike Kelley's complex mode of representation utilizes sculpture, performance, painting, installation, and photography to address themes of nostalgia, memory, and repression in American folk culture. His 2005 show, Day is Done, consisted of an extensive collection of photographs and film that re-created scenes from the artist's schooldays. Remaking forgotten memories by augmenting biographic artifacts with imagery, popular culture, and psychological interpretation, he probes at the moments of ritual and tradition--such as school dances and Halloween activities--investigating the moral and experiential subtexts of these events. Kelley's philosophical understanding of contemporary art and its function--clear not only in his artwork, but also his widely publicized art criticism--enables him to actively widen the breadth of artistic expression. Mike Kelley lives and works in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts and the University of Michigan. His major museum solo exhibitions include Hirshhorn Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art and LACMA; Museu D'art Contemporani, Barcelona; Tate Liverpool; Musée du Louvre; and WIELS Centre d'Art Contemporain.
LOT L12 MARK RYDEN / Angel of Meat, 2007
Porcelain sculpture
16 ½ x 9 in. (41.9 x 22.9 cm.)
Auction estimate: $30,000
Gift of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery
Upon first glance, Mark Ryden's work seems to mirror the Surrealists' fascination with the subconscious and collective memories. However, Ryden transcends the initial Surrealists' strategies by consciously choosing subject matter loaded with cultural connotation. His dewy vixens, cuddly plush pets, alchemical symbols, religious emblems, primordial landscapes, and slabs of meat challenge his audience, not necessarily with their own oddity, but with the introduction of their soothing cultural familiarity into unsettling circumstances. Two of Mark Ryden's favorite subjects collide in Angel of Meat, 2007. A porcelain cherub of divine beauty holds up a big, mouthwatering steak. The clash of imagery is typical Ryden, celebrating the surreal and the tactile, the heavenly and the earthbound. Clearly infused with classical references, Ryden's work is not only inspired by recent history, but also the works of past masters. He counts among his influences Bosch, Bruegel and Ingres with generous nods to Bouguereau and Italian and Spanish religious painting. The result is a strange and sometimes challenging, but always hauntingly beautiful, work of art steeped in the lessons of art history. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, where he works slowly and happily amidst his countless collections of trinkets, statues, skeletons, books, paintings, and antique toys.
LOT S101 LISA ANNE AUERBACH / Take this Knitting Machine and Shove It, 2009
Inkjet print
Edition of 5
20 x 40 in. (50.8 x 101.6 cm.), print size
Auction estimate: $4,000
Gift of the artist and Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, Florida
Lisa Anne Auerbach runs a modest publishing and propaganda empire out of a stucco bungalow in South Los Angeles. When she's not on her bike, she's knitting inflammatory, slogan-adorned sweaters and banners, making photographs of overlooked landmarks, and putting small publications out into the big world. With self-published magazines, including Saddlesore, American Homebody, American Stuccolow, and Last Week In the Project Space, she has made mountains out of molehills and continued the tradition of insisting that the personal is political. Her sweaters, small publications, and photographs have been shown in museums, galleries, cooperative bicycle repair shops, Kunsthals, and vacant desert lots.
LOT S102 TONY BERLANT / Upstage, 2008
Found and fabricated printed tin collaged on plywood with steel brads
13 3/4 x 12 in. (34.9 x 30.5 cm.)
Auction estimate: $7,500
Gift of the artist and L.A. Louver Gallery
Tony Berlant's paintings are comprised of found and fabricated tin, which is collaged on plywood with steel brads. Drawn from landscape, his complex works are dynamic compositions with sensual surfaces that belie their photographic basis. Berlant attended UCLA, earning a BA, an MA, and an MFA. His work has received solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and LACMA, which awarded Berlant its "New Talent Award" early in his career. In 2006, he participated in the landmark exhibition Los Angeles 1955-1985 at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Upcoming in 2011 and 2012, his work will be included in Pacific Standard Time exhibitions at MOCA, Los Angeles, and the Natural History Museum.
LOT S103 WALEAD BESHTY / Three-Sided Picture (CMY), March 24th 2010, Irvine, California, Fujicolor Crystal Archive Super Type C/2010, 2010
Color photographic paper
30 x 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm.), framed
Auction estimate: $8,000
Walead Beshty's work explores the historical, conceptual, and formal tenants of the photographic medium, and often deals with the background production process that is often left unseen and unspoken. Beshty's work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including Malmö Konstall, Malmo, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Beshty lives and works in Los Angeles and is represented by Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
LOT S104 AARON CURRY / Purple Box, 2011
Silkscreen and tape on cardboard
13 1/2 x 11 7/8 x 3 ½ in. (34.3 x 30.2 x 8.9 cm.)
Auction estimate: $8,000
Gift of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery
Aaron Curry's sculptures, paintings, and collages represent a radically revisionist take on the Western artistic tradition. Seemingly the product of an aggressively historicizing id, Curry's work replaces the idea of a visual language with that of a constantly shifting context––a formal universe whose boundaries collapse and expand at will with pornographic vigor. He often fuses modernist forms with specific cultural references poached from advertisements, buried trends in art history, comics, and other unlikely sources. Curry is intimately hooked into this constantly mutating world of images. Through his works, he proposes an altered view of these cultural products and their expected meanings, and recodes culturally loaded imagery into a "formal matrix," where traits such as dominant patterns, shapes and conceptual modes ultimately result in a new and complicated visual environment. Curry's work is represented in many permanent collections, including the Hammer Museum; SFMOMA; the Zabludowicz Collection, London; MCA, Chicago; the Rubell Family Collection, Miami; and LACMA.
LOT S105 KIRSTEN EVERBERG / 31 Tite Street, (Rodin), 2011
Oil and enamel on paper
22 x 30 in. (55.9 x 76.2 cm.), paper size
Auction estimate: $5,000
Gift of the aritist / Courtesy of 1301PE
Kirsten Everberg's thick enamel paint simultaneously seduces and repels the viewer, as it seals an image of a place. As noted by curator Russell Ferguson, "The shiny paint echoes the glittering surfaces. It fixes and preserves them, as if in amber, yet at the same time, its fluidity suggests that the whole scene could be at the point of melting away forever." Through her masterful technique, Everberg combines realism with relative abstraction in her paintings of artifice and architecture. She is presented in many important collections, including the Hammer Museum; MOCA, Los Angeles; Musée des Beaux-Arts; and Le Consortium. Her next major exhibition will open in October at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.
LOT S106 FRANCESCA GABBIANI / Detail 3 (Hérésie et Sorcellerie), 2007
Colored paper and gouache on paper
19 ½ in. (49.5 cm.) in diameter, framed
Auction estimate: $5,000
Gift of the artist and Patrick Painter Inc.
Francesca Gabbiani's work explores voids and portraits, depth and superficiality, mythology, and the dimensions of time. She creates these deceptively simple works through her use of layered construction paper. She uses a computer to generate an image and uses that image as a kind of grid onto which she places meticulously hand-cut pieces of colored paper. She then carefully builds up the layers of paper to create a balance of color and texture, depth and perspective. Born in Montreal and raised in Switzerland, Gabbiani studied at the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Geneva and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She went on to receive her MFA from UCLA and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited at such prestigious institutions as LACMA; the Hammer Museum; MOMA; and MOCA, Los Angeles. Her work is included in such public collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; MOMA; and MOCA, Los Angeles.
LOT S107 CAMILLE ROSE GARCIA / Leaky, Inky Blowholes, 2011
Acrylic, ink, pencil, and mica on handmade paper
15 x 11 in. (38.1 x 27.9 cm.), paper size
Auction estimate: $6,500
Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery
In her most recent work, Camille Rose Garcia uses the famous Grimm Brothers' story "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" to create a modern day allegory for our delusional relationship with nature and the fantasies we tell ourselves about our own involvement in its destruction. Referencing the classic German Fairy tale, as well as the animated film by Walt Disney, Garcia weaves a monstrous modern and dysfunctional narrative using cartoony, Jungian archetypes; a psychedelic saturated color palette; an obtuse combination of action-painter brush strokes; and carefully controlled, calligraphic line work. Camille Rose Garcia was born in 1970 in Los Angeles, California. Her work has been displayed internationally and is included in the collections of LACMA, The Resnick Collection, and the San Jose Museum of Art, which held a retrospective of her work. Garcia's latest project, "The Illustrated Alice in Wonderland," was a New York Times bestseller.
LOT S108 ALEXANDRA GRANT / Nimbo, 2008
Graphite on paper
60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm.), framed
Auction estimate: $10,000
Gift of the artist and Honor Fraser Gallery
Alexandra Grant's, "nimbo" series of drawings is meant to evoke the cloud-like nature of language. Based on a text by hypertext pioneer Michael Joyce, Grant first translated "nimbus" into Spanish and then into this complex drawing. A line from "nimbus" reads: "It is all mystery and lemons the way the clouds are crowned. Red sails take warning. The swallow dips her wings in the gilt water at the seam where the sky is soldered." Grant uses language as the basis for her works in painting, drawing, and sculpture. She explores ideas of translation, identity, and dis/location by collaborating with other writers such as Joyce, philosopher Hélène Cixous, and actor Keanu Reeves. Grant's work is in the permanent collections of MOCA, Los Angeles, and LACMA, and has been featured in exhibitions including MOCA's Focus Series and The Artists' Museum, the 2010 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art, and Human Nature at LACMA.
LOT S109 SOO KIM / ( He Sighs ), 2009
Two hand-cut chromogenic prints
36 x 36 in. (91.4 x 91.4 cm.), framed
Auction estimate: $10,000
Gift of the artist and Angles Gallery
Soo Kim's practice as an artist blends the making of photographs with the critical interpretation of images on a broader level. Recent bodies of work employ the techniques of cutting and layering prints, introducing areas of absence or disruption to address the issues of photographic transparency and the immediate consumption of images. (He sighs) was created by overlaying two images of Dubrovnik, Croatia, and synthesizing them into one, in order to create a new image that is both densely interwoven and porous enough to reveal its material backing. The lengthy process required to create her photographs infuses them with a "slowness" that finds its counterpart in the amount of time it takes the viewer to read them. Kim's work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions including "Urban Panoramas" at the Getty Center, the "2004 California Biennale" at the Orange County Museum of Art, and the 2002 Gwangju Biennale.
LOT S110 DENNIS KOCH / Untitled, 2011
Colored pencil on paper
53 x 55 in. (134.6 x 139.7 cm.), framed
Auction estimate: $3,600
Gift of the artist and Marine Contemporary
Hemispheric discontinuity and parallel processing are central themes to the Circle Set drawings of Los Angeles-based artist Dennis Koch. Analogous to the two hemispheres of the human brain, these dense colored pencil drawings consist of two dissonant sets of five rings encircling two blank oculates. These vibrant rings challenge the viewer to cross-process both sides in unison. This experience is similar to how neuroscientist Robert Monroe pioneered the use of oscillating binaural auditory tones to stimulate and harmonize brainwaves, promoting altered states of consciousness. Koch's meticulous and psychedelic drawings are deeply influenced by a variety of postwar abstractionists, such as Frank Stella, Yayoi Kusama, and Sol Lewitt. Often referencing parapsychology, cosmology, and various physics theories, Koch uses a form of geometric abstraction to generate a rhythmic interplay of chaos and re-integration. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Palm Springs and Munich. Koch's upcoming exhibitions can be seen in Tokyo and Munich.
LOT S111 ANNIE LAPIN / Scene-Body, 2011
Oil and acrylic on linen
42 x 24 in. (106.7 x 61 cm.), framed
Auction estimate: $8,000
Gift of the artist and Honor Fraser Gallery
Annie Lapin states, "My practice begins with a consideration of how paintings behave in space and the external inputs that give these objects meaning and value. I am interested in the way paintings are highly material objects, and yet by viewer attention and social interaction, they gain greater significance--an aura that goes beyond the physical. I see painting as an object where the projections of historical memory and the material meet. Each piece is a unique endeavor and its own playful system for highlighting the dialectic between the two within the canvas frame." Annie Lapin works in Los Angeles and received her BA from Yale University and her MFA from UCLA. Lapin has had solo-exhibitions at Honor Fraser Gallery, Angles Gallery, The Pasadena Museum of California Art, and Grand Arts in Kansas City. Upcoming exhibitions include solo shows at Bloom Projects in the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Yautepec Gallery in Mexico City, Annarumma Gallery in Naples and a group show at Josh Lilley Gallery in London.
Graphite on mylar
14 x 11 in. (35.6 x 27.9 cm.), paper size
Auction estimate: $3,000
Courtesy of the artist and Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles
Nathan Mabry's fascination with how objects function in the public mind and his desire to address the totality of culture, both high and low, fuels an urge to make relevant, holistic objects that engage with the inherent complexities of the world in which we live. Whether we experience Mabry's pieces through art history, or other modes of consumption, is a topic that allows for humor and surprise, complexity and contemplation. This graphite study became a cast aluminum fountain based on the Lipchitz sculpture "Figure" at the Norton Simon, and Mabry's version cries from all eyes. Mabry received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2012, Mabry will be the subject of a solo presentation at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, and Praz-Delavallade, Paris. His work is included in such collections as LACMA, the Hammer Museum, MCASD, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
LOT S113 AARON MORSE / Waves, 2011
Watercolor on paper
23 x 30 1/2 in. (58.4 x 77.5 cm.), paper size
Auction estimate: $4,800
Gift of the artist and ACME., Los Angeles
Waves, 2011 is from an ongoing series of watercolors of seascapes and wildlife scenes, influenced by Japanese woodblocks, in which Morse captures the frailty of man versus the enormous power of nature. Aaron Morse was born in 1974 in Tucson, Arizona. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 1996 and his MFA from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1998. Selected solo exhibitions include the Hammer Museum; ACME., Los Angeles; and Guild and Greyshkul, New York. Selected group exhibitions include The Old, Weird America, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Stranger Than Fiction, Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and Personal Freedom, Portugal Arte, Lisbon, Portugal. His fifth solo show with ACME. opens November, 2011. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
Triptych: acrylic, acrylic ink and embossed drawing on duralene
10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm.) each, paper size
Auction estimate: $6,000
Gift of the artist and Brennan & Griffin Gallery
Sandeep Mukherjee states, "The structural use of line, either horizontal as in horizons, undulating as in mountains and valleys, spiraling and circling as in expansion and contraction or perspectival as in approaching and receding has been integral in my ongoing investigation of dimensional reality and the subjective experience of limitless space." Sandeep Mukherjee received a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, and an MFA from UCLA. He has had solo exhibitions at Brennan and Griffin, New York; Sister and Cottage Home, Los Angeles; the Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles; Project 88, Mumbai; and the Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA. Group exhibitions include MOCA, Los Angeles; the Hammer Museum; and the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco. His work is in the permanent collections of MOCA, Los Angeles; MOMA; LACMA; and the Hammer Museum; among others. Mukherjee is represented by Brennan and Griffin Gallery, New York, and Project 88, Mumbai. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
LOT S115 JORGE PARDO / Untitled, 2011
Silkscreen on paper, colored pencil, glitter
36 x 25 in. (91.4 x 63.5cm.), paper size
Auction estimate: $8,500
Courtesy of Jorge Pardo and 1301PE
Jorge Pardo is known for exploring the boundaries between art, architecture, and design. He employs a broad palette of vibrant colors and eclectic patterns, referencing both organic and industrial forms in his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and design objects. Working on small and monumental scales, Pardo is constantly challenging conventional notions of art. Pardo was recently named a 2010 MacArthur Fellow. His paintings, sculptures, and installations have been exhibited at numerous national and international venues, including the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; the Palais des Beaux Arts; the Irish Museum of Modern Art; MOCA, Los Angeles; and LACMA. This detail represents the work in progress. Please visit angelartauction.org to view the completed work.
LOT S116 FAY RAY / Impractical Magic, 2011
Magazine collaged on paper
24 x 18 in. (61 x 45.7 cm.), paper size
Auction estimate: $7,500
Gift of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
Appropriating images from fashion and lifestyle magazines, Fay Ray has developed a unique process of working that treats commercial imagery as objects which are then treated to create dense collaged compositions. Shoes, diamonds, watches, jewelry, lips, eyes, and other body parts are converted into a photo collage that takes on the function of an object itself, while attempting to negotiate the representation of other luxury commodities. The images of Fay Ray's compositions are situated between the realm of commerce and the realm of surrealism and fetishism--speaking to the complex psychological relationship between desire, excessive consumption, and the construction of feminine subjectivity. This specific body of work responds to the artist's relationship with the city of Los Angeles and represents the tension between the haunting and romantic experiences that inform this geographic locale. Fay Ray lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work is influenced by both Los Angeles and New York, having studied at Otis College of Art and Design, as well as Columbia University. She has exhibited in both Los Angeles and New York at spaces including Exit Art, LA.
LOT S117 NANCY RUBINS / Study, 2011
Bronze
Edition of 24
12 x 15 x 16 in. (30.5 x 38.1 x 40.6 cm.)
Auction estimate: $15,000
Gift of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
Nancy Rubins' colossal sculpture Chas' Stainless Steel, made of airplane parts, is on permanent view in the plaza of MOCA, Los Angeles. Nancy Rubins was born in Naples, TX, raised in Tullahoma, TN, and currently lives and works in Topanga Canyon, CA. For more than 25 years, Rubins has exhibited extensively around the world, including major solo shows at Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles, and MOMA. Her work has also been featured in many major group exhibitions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial Exhibition; Venice Biennale, and "Helter Skelter; LA Art in the 1990s," MOCA, Los Angeles. Permanent collections include MOCA, Albright-Knox, the Hammer Museum, MCASD, and MOMA.
LOT S118 BERT STERN / Marilyn Monroe "Bride" from The Last Sitting, 1962, 2007
Gelatin silverprint
Edition 10/25
13 x 19 in. (33 x 48.3 cm.), paper size
Auction estimate: $5,000
Gift of Danniel Rangel, Paris
"The Bride" by Bert Stern is from the famous series called The Last Sitting, photographs commissioned by Vogue during Diana Vreeland's first week at the magazine in June, 1962. The sitting took place in the Bel-Air Hotel over three sessions, ending with Monroe dressed in couture and furs. In "The Bride," Monroe is wearing a Dior gown and veil. Today this series of Monroe by Stern has attained mythic status and has been not only published all over the world, but also has been a font of inspiration for photographers and designers alike. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Monroe's death, Taschen is publishing "Norman Mailer, Bert Stern: Marilyn Monroe", which will include all of the images from The Last Sitting. Iconic photographer Bert Stern is still working and exhibiting worldwide.
LOT S119 BRIAN WILLS / Untitled, 2011
Oil, rayon thread on wood
26 x 26 in. (66 x 66 cm.)
Auction estimate: $8,000
Gift of the artist and Nye + Brown
Brian Wills explores abstraction through the use of unconventional materials to create lush paintings steeped in a minimalist tradition. With an array of media such as dental floss, vinyl tape, and, most recently, rayon thread, the work takes on a seemingly tactful feel, as the artist painstakingly creates layered constructions that seem to be in constant flux. At the heart of the work is the artist's interest in optics and the way the brain registers color, movement, and spatial relationships. Wills is a graduate of Denison and Harvard Universities. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions in the US and abroad, including Tokyo and London. Brian Wills lives and works in Los Angeles.
