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Auction archive: Lot number 32

Andy Warhol

Estimate
£300,000 - £500,000
ca. US$466,772 - US$777,954
Price realised:
n. a.
Auction archive: Lot number 32

Andy Warhol

Estimate
£300,000 - £500,000
ca. US$466,772 - US$777,954
Price realised:
n. a.
Beschreibung:

Andy Warhol Gun 1981-82 synthetic polymer paint, silkscreen inks on canvas 40.6 x 50.8 cm (15 7/8 x 20 in.) Stamped twice by The Estate of Andy Warhol and The Andy Warhol Foundation on the overlap.
Provenance Stellan Holm Gallery, New York Jablonka Galerie, Cologne Galerie Vedovi, Brussels Private Collection Catalogue Essay In 1968, Valerie Solanas fired a gun at Andy Warhol The experience had a profound impact on the artist both physically and psychologically: for years afterwards, his work would resound with the echoes of her gunshots. The present lots date from 1981-82, a twilight period in which Warhol returned to and reexamined the key images of his career. His Guns and Knives series have both frequently been read as holding autobiographical significance: stark still lives that allow a therapeutic reconciliation with violence through the impersonal and studied superficiality of Warhol’s image-making practice. As his friend Vincent Fremont recounts, ‘having nearly been killed by a handgun Andy was able to make paintings of guns as iconic objects. In order to choose which guns he would use we made calls to friends who might know someone with a gun. A few scary people, with first names only, came by and let Andy take Polaroids of their weapons. I remember him photographing a sawn-off shotgun. Finally after looking at the different Polaroids, he decided to use high-contrast reproductions of certain handguns.’ (Vincent Fremont, Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Work of Andy Warhol New York, NY: Gagosian, 2006, p.157). Through his trademark serial production methods Warhol reclaims and distances himself from the very weapon which nearly claimed his life. Devoid of personality, the gun becomes a clinical object: reiterated icon rather than loaded firearm. Unlike Roy Lichtenstein’s 1963 Trigger Finger, which fetishizes the gun at the point of firing, Warhol’s guns are inert, distanced from human contact and displayed like laboratory specimens. This dispassionate Warholian lens elides the intense physical agony that birthed the series. The artist recounted the Solanas incident in harrowing detail: ‘as I was putting the phone down, I heard a loud exploding noise and whirled around: I saw Valerie pointing a gun at me and I realized she'd just fired it. I said “No! No, Valerie! Don't do it!” and she shot at me again. I dropped down to the floor as if I'd been hit, I didn't know if I actually was or not. I tried to crawl under the desk. She moved in closer, fired again, and then I felt horrible, horrible pain, like a cherry bomb exploding inside me.’ (Andy Warhol in Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol Sixties, Orlando: Harcourt Press, 1980, p.343). Warhol was forced to undergo invasive surgery, his chest opened and heart massaged; he suffered ongoing pain and wore a surgical corset for the rest of his life. As the pistols are emptied of murderous intent, Warhol achieves catharsis through postmodern praxis that is predicated on a deep understanding of the mass media cult of the image. Warhol wrote in 1980 that ‘The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel.’ (Andy Warhol in Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol Sixties, Orlando: Harcourt Press, 1980, p.50). A year later, the French theorist Baudrillard observed that ‘We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.’ (Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulacrum, Paris: Editions Galilée, 1981, p.79). Warhol finds solace in this very condition, attaining a sort of nirvana through surface. Baudrillard advances his diagnosis of the ‘hyperreal’ in an exegesis of ‘the "TV" image, which suggests nothing, which mesmerizes, which itself is nothing but a screen, not even that … you are the screen, and the TV watches you.’ (Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulacrum, Paris: Editions Galilée, 1981, p.53). The crucial distinctions between the real and the virtual, he argues, have now all but disappeared. Again, this theory of contemporary perception finds a striking equivalence in the tenor of Warhol’s own outlook on life: one punctuated decisively by the shooting. ‘Before I wa

Auction archive: Lot number 32
Auction:
Datum:
29 Jun 2015
Auction house:
Phillips
London
Beschreibung:

Andy Warhol Gun 1981-82 synthetic polymer paint, silkscreen inks on canvas 40.6 x 50.8 cm (15 7/8 x 20 in.) Stamped twice by The Estate of Andy Warhol and The Andy Warhol Foundation on the overlap.
Provenance Stellan Holm Gallery, New York Jablonka Galerie, Cologne Galerie Vedovi, Brussels Private Collection Catalogue Essay In 1968, Valerie Solanas fired a gun at Andy Warhol The experience had a profound impact on the artist both physically and psychologically: for years afterwards, his work would resound with the echoes of her gunshots. The present lots date from 1981-82, a twilight period in which Warhol returned to and reexamined the key images of his career. His Guns and Knives series have both frequently been read as holding autobiographical significance: stark still lives that allow a therapeutic reconciliation with violence through the impersonal and studied superficiality of Warhol’s image-making practice. As his friend Vincent Fremont recounts, ‘having nearly been killed by a handgun Andy was able to make paintings of guns as iconic objects. In order to choose which guns he would use we made calls to friends who might know someone with a gun. A few scary people, with first names only, came by and let Andy take Polaroids of their weapons. I remember him photographing a sawn-off shotgun. Finally after looking at the different Polaroids, he decided to use high-contrast reproductions of certain handguns.’ (Vincent Fremont, Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Work of Andy Warhol New York, NY: Gagosian, 2006, p.157). Through his trademark serial production methods Warhol reclaims and distances himself from the very weapon which nearly claimed his life. Devoid of personality, the gun becomes a clinical object: reiterated icon rather than loaded firearm. Unlike Roy Lichtenstein’s 1963 Trigger Finger, which fetishizes the gun at the point of firing, Warhol’s guns are inert, distanced from human contact and displayed like laboratory specimens. This dispassionate Warholian lens elides the intense physical agony that birthed the series. The artist recounted the Solanas incident in harrowing detail: ‘as I was putting the phone down, I heard a loud exploding noise and whirled around: I saw Valerie pointing a gun at me and I realized she'd just fired it. I said “No! No, Valerie! Don't do it!” and she shot at me again. I dropped down to the floor as if I'd been hit, I didn't know if I actually was or not. I tried to crawl under the desk. She moved in closer, fired again, and then I felt horrible, horrible pain, like a cherry bomb exploding inside me.’ (Andy Warhol in Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol Sixties, Orlando: Harcourt Press, 1980, p.343). Warhol was forced to undergo invasive surgery, his chest opened and heart massaged; he suffered ongoing pain and wore a surgical corset for the rest of his life. As the pistols are emptied of murderous intent, Warhol achieves catharsis through postmodern praxis that is predicated on a deep understanding of the mass media cult of the image. Warhol wrote in 1980 that ‘The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel.’ (Andy Warhol in Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol Sixties, Orlando: Harcourt Press, 1980, p.50). A year later, the French theorist Baudrillard observed that ‘We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.’ (Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulacrum, Paris: Editions Galilée, 1981, p.79). Warhol finds solace in this very condition, attaining a sort of nirvana through surface. Baudrillard advances his diagnosis of the ‘hyperreal’ in an exegesis of ‘the "TV" image, which suggests nothing, which mesmerizes, which itself is nothing but a screen, not even that … you are the screen, and the TV watches you.’ (Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulacrum, Paris: Editions Galilée, 1981, p.53). The crucial distinctions between the real and the virtual, he argues, have now all but disappeared. Again, this theory of contemporary perception finds a striking equivalence in the tenor of Warhol’s own outlook on life: one punctuated decisively by the shooting. ‘Before I wa

Auction archive: Lot number 32
Auction:
Datum:
29 Jun 2015
Auction house:
Phillips
London
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