◆ 14 ULTIMATE MAGNUM Mikhael Subotzky Follow Self-portrait (with the help of optometrist) R and L from Retinal Shift 2012 Unique archival pigment diptych, face-mounted to toughened glass smashed by the artist, executed 2018. Each image: 100 x 80 cm (39 3/8 x 31 1/2 in.) Each frame: 102.8 x 82.8 cm (40 1/2 x 32 5/8 in.) Signed in ink, printed title, date and number AP1 on on the accompanying Certificate of Authenticity. This diptych is unique and was created exclusively for ULTIMATE. Each print is AP1 from the sold-out edition of 5 + 2 APs, each image exists only in this size and edition and this is the only smashed work from the edition. Since 2011, Subotzky has selected 42 images for smashing and have made 69 smashed works in total. The present lot will be the final smashed work he will ever produce.
Condition Report Sign up or Log in Exhibited Retinal Shift , Standard Bank Young Artist Award exhibition, Gallery in the Round, The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, 28 June - 11 July 2012; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, 25 July - 5 September 2012; Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg, 20 September - 11 November 2012; IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town, 29 November 2012 - 9 January 2013; Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, Bloemfontein, 27 February - 29 March 2013; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, 17 April - 15 June 2013; University of Potchefstroom Art Gallery, Potchefstroom, 27 June - 2 August 2013, others, variant Literature M. Subotzky, Retinal Shift , Göttingen: Steidl, 2012, front and back covers, p. 22, variant Catalogue Essay Premiering here is Mikhael Subotzky’s unique smashed self-portrait diptych – showing his right and left retinas – which he has chosen as the last smashed work he will ever create. In 2011, Subotzky smashed his first work Christopher Sibidla’s Body I, Maitland Morgue , 2004 from his first series Die Vier Hoeke [The Four Corners], an in-depth study of the South African penal system. Requested by the deceased prisoner’s mother, Subotzky photographed the charred corpse of this prisoner who had tragically died after his cell was set on fire. ‘The image haunted me for years and I had a strange but strong instinct that I wanted to smash it,’ he recalls, ‘this felt like a very scary, violent thing to do, in some ways re-enacting the violence done to Chris, but I soon realised that conversely, in smashing the glass, I was also covering up the burnt nakedness of his body.’ This was the first of nine smashed works he produced for his installation I was looking back as part of his 2012 Standard Bank Young Artist Award exhibition, Retinal Shift . For the last eight years, he has continued to smash photographs that for him holds a particular tension with regards to the representational relationship between himself, the subject and the viewer. Self-portrait (with the help of optometrist) R and L was also first exhibited in Retinal Shift . This exhibition investigated the practice and mechanics of looking in relation to the history of photographic devices, as well as Subotzky’s own history as an artist. These two giant images of his right and left retinas aptly greeted viewers as they entered the exhibition. As the title suggests, Subotzky asked an optometrist for a portrait of his eyes and was fascinated by the momentarily blinding experience. ‘At the moment that my retinas, my essential organs of seeing, were photographed, I was blinded by the apparatus that made the images,’ he remembers, ‘so it is a self-portrait of myself the photographer, at a moment that I could not see.’ Retinal Shift was shown in six South African venues and his self-portrait diptych graced the front and back covers of the accompanying book, published by Steidl (2012). Born in 1981 in Cape Town, South Africa, Mikhael Subotzky is a multidisciplinary artist who works across multiple media, including photography, video, film, and most recently, painting. He was only 23 years old when he first gained recognition in 2004 for his BFA degree project on life inside the notorious Pollsmoor Prison. The project Die Vier Hoeke [The Four Corners] earned him not only the best marks ever given at the Michaelis School of Fine Art but also high praise from the art world. At 25, he became one of the youngest photographers ever to be invited to join the elite photo agency Magnum. Over the last 15 years, his work has continued to address the structures of narrative and representation, as well as the relationship between social storytelling and the formal contingencies of image making. His most recent body of work, Yellow Bile (or Work in Progress) , comprises large-scale painted canvases and explores how images are constructed in relation to their materiality and narrative content. Subotzky is a recipient of various
◆ 14 ULTIMATE MAGNUM Mikhael Subotzky Follow Self-portrait (with the help of optometrist) R and L from Retinal Shift 2012 Unique archival pigment diptych, face-mounted to toughened glass smashed by the artist, executed 2018. Each image: 100 x 80 cm (39 3/8 x 31 1/2 in.) Each frame: 102.8 x 82.8 cm (40 1/2 x 32 5/8 in.) Signed in ink, printed title, date and number AP1 on on the accompanying Certificate of Authenticity. This diptych is unique and was created exclusively for ULTIMATE. Each print is AP1 from the sold-out edition of 5 + 2 APs, each image exists only in this size and edition and this is the only smashed work from the edition. Since 2011, Subotzky has selected 42 images for smashing and have made 69 smashed works in total. The present lot will be the final smashed work he will ever produce.
Condition Report Sign up or Log in Exhibited Retinal Shift , Standard Bank Young Artist Award exhibition, Gallery in the Round, The National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, 28 June - 11 July 2012; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, 25 July - 5 September 2012; Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg, 20 September - 11 November 2012; IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town, 29 November 2012 - 9 January 2013; Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, Bloemfontein, 27 February - 29 March 2013; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, 17 April - 15 June 2013; University of Potchefstroom Art Gallery, Potchefstroom, 27 June - 2 August 2013, others, variant Literature M. Subotzky, Retinal Shift , Göttingen: Steidl, 2012, front and back covers, p. 22, variant Catalogue Essay Premiering here is Mikhael Subotzky’s unique smashed self-portrait diptych – showing his right and left retinas – which he has chosen as the last smashed work he will ever create. In 2011, Subotzky smashed his first work Christopher Sibidla’s Body I, Maitland Morgue , 2004 from his first series Die Vier Hoeke [The Four Corners], an in-depth study of the South African penal system. Requested by the deceased prisoner’s mother, Subotzky photographed the charred corpse of this prisoner who had tragically died after his cell was set on fire. ‘The image haunted me for years and I had a strange but strong instinct that I wanted to smash it,’ he recalls, ‘this felt like a very scary, violent thing to do, in some ways re-enacting the violence done to Chris, but I soon realised that conversely, in smashing the glass, I was also covering up the burnt nakedness of his body.’ This was the first of nine smashed works he produced for his installation I was looking back as part of his 2012 Standard Bank Young Artist Award exhibition, Retinal Shift . For the last eight years, he has continued to smash photographs that for him holds a particular tension with regards to the representational relationship between himself, the subject and the viewer. Self-portrait (with the help of optometrist) R and L was also first exhibited in Retinal Shift . This exhibition investigated the practice and mechanics of looking in relation to the history of photographic devices, as well as Subotzky’s own history as an artist. These two giant images of his right and left retinas aptly greeted viewers as they entered the exhibition. As the title suggests, Subotzky asked an optometrist for a portrait of his eyes and was fascinated by the momentarily blinding experience. ‘At the moment that my retinas, my essential organs of seeing, were photographed, I was blinded by the apparatus that made the images,’ he remembers, ‘so it is a self-portrait of myself the photographer, at a moment that I could not see.’ Retinal Shift was shown in six South African venues and his self-portrait diptych graced the front and back covers of the accompanying book, published by Steidl (2012). Born in 1981 in Cape Town, South Africa, Mikhael Subotzky is a multidisciplinary artist who works across multiple media, including photography, video, film, and most recently, painting. He was only 23 years old when he first gained recognition in 2004 for his BFA degree project on life inside the notorious Pollsmoor Prison. The project Die Vier Hoeke [The Four Corners] earned him not only the best marks ever given at the Michaelis School of Fine Art but also high praise from the art world. At 25, he became one of the youngest photographers ever to be invited to join the elite photo agency Magnum. Over the last 15 years, his work has continued to address the structures of narrative and representation, as well as the relationship between social storytelling and the formal contingencies of image making. His most recent body of work, Yellow Bile (or Work in Progress) , comprises large-scale painted canvases and explores how images are constructed in relation to their materiality and narrative content. Subotzky is a recipient of various
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
