greg.org

Phillips, in recognition of this globally significant moment and in
reflection of the ever-relevant and flexible nature of Darren Bader’s work, invite you, and 999 other
diverse invitees, to become an active part of the total “site” of an expansive physical exhibition. You are
invited to be a “place” in the official installation of a work by Darren
Bader, in the location of your
choosing, by following the parameters of this exhibition:

Darren Bader
Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person? – Clarice Lispector “I know, but there are lots of parts of being a person, you know?” “Yeah, I know”. Anyone who lives, knows, even without knowing, that he or she knows – Clarice Lispector
Fortune cookies
Overall dimensions vary with installation
Original installation: approximately 1,000 fortune cookies

October 21, 2020

The opening of this exhibition is also in honor of and in conjunction with the launch of the

Darren Bader Foundation’s new website

An integral part of the work at the center of this exhibition, Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person? – Clarice Lispector “I know, but there are lots of parts of being a person, you know?” “Yeah, I know”. Anyone who lives, knows, even without knowing, that he or she knows – Clarice Lispector, 2013 (and of many of Bader’s other malleable works), is that the owner has the right to make certain decisions and interpretations of the specific yet open-ended parameters of the work, each time they manifest the work. When lending the work, the owner is thereby temporarily lending to the authorized borrower the owner’s rights and responsibilities to take on these decisions and interpretations, specifically for the length of the loan. This work is for sale in this exhibition courtesy of a private collection. The curator and representative of the authorized agent for this exhibition is Phillips.

CORE TENETS of Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person? – Clarice Lispector “I know, but there are lots of parts of being a person, you know?” “Yeah, I know”. Anyone who lives, knows, even without knowing, that he or she knows – Clarice Lispector, 2013 [and all Bader candy works]:
The work can exist in more than one place at a time, as its uniqueness is defined by ownership.
An intention of the work is that it can be manifested with ease.
When the work is manifest, individuals must be permitted to choose to take pieces from the work.
The owner (or authorized borrower) has the right to determine if and how the work is regenerated during the course of an exhibition/installation.
The owner (or authorized borrower) has the right to interpret/choose the mode, configuration, and placement of installation for each manifestation.

The work exists even if it is not manifest.
A manifestation of the work is only the work if it is installed by the owner or in the context of an authorized loan.
An authorized manifestation of the work is the work, and should only be referred to as the work.
This work is a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and the fortune cookies are to be sourced locally by the buyer.
Estimate £8,000 – 10,000. [UPDATE: Sold for £7,000, cookies not included.]

In 2004 Olafur Eliasson made The Jokla Series, a grid of 48 aerial photos of the Jokla, a river fed by Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull, which was threatened by the proposed construction of a large dam to power an aluminum smelting plant. Aerial traces of a river’s path and hydroelectric construction sites had each been the subject of a photo grid before, in 2000.

But by 2004 Eliasson’s prominence, and the significance of the Jokla damming controversy brought added attention to his examinations of the Icelandic landscape. In May 2005, Morg­un­blaðið, the largest newspaper in Iceland, published a special standalone issue containing all 48 Jokla photos, plus an essay on place by Doreen Massey.

Later in 2005, Eliasson opened a show at the Kunsthaus Zug titled, “The body as brain.” Eliasson installed copies of the Morg­un­blaðið Jökluserí­an issue as wallpaper for the Kunsthaus Bar. The show remained into 2006 as part of “Projekt Sammlung,” or “collection project,” a multi-year collaboration with the innovative institution, “an artistic process in which the viewer, the work and the museum mediate anew with regard to the constitution of reality.”

Though the aluminum dam got built and the river got screwed, and the Projekt Sammlung was successful, but is dormant, The Jokla Series continues to mediate anew with regard to the constitution of reality. An extraordinary photo grid is for sale at Sotheby’s next week, which is titled The Jokla Series.

Its dimensions and framing differ from the The Jokla Series in MoMA’s collection, and each photo, described as c-prints by the auction house, has, not a crease, but a seam down the center.

I think they are the prints from the Morg­un­blaðið Jökluserí­an issue–two issues, actually–cut and pieced together, as the wallpaper was, and framed à la Eliasson (except for those mats, obv), by a Danish, not Swiss, framer, who I think even wrote the page numbers on the verso. If they are indeed c-prints (I’m waiting for the condition report*), then they are rephotographed images of the assembled newspaper prints, which is even more extraordinary. Olafurian reality is constituting around me anew as I stare at my screen in awe and admiration. I mean, the framing alone had to cost EUR5000.

The provenance states they came from the artist, and thence by descent, so one degree of separation from the origin/al owner. All of this is happening in the bright light of the art world assembled, at one of our most august mercantile institutions. So if this collection project stays around until the hammer drops, it will indeed be an exceptional work, with an exceptional backstory. And if it doesn’t, well, as glaciers and the rivers that flow from them can sadly attest, things we look to for permanence can suddenly change, or even disappear.

[*next morning update: this lot was withdrawn. so of course now I want to buy it.]

22 Oct 2020, Lot 292 “Olafur Eliasson, The Jökla Series, 2004,” est. GBP 50-70,000 [sothebys]

Jacob Kassay’s silvered paintings appeared in early 2009, “elegantly abused luxury goods” whose distorting mirroring surfaces were instantly desirable to collectors. Then their glinting allure proved irresistible to financial speculators whose only lesson from the recent implosion of the global financial markets was that they’d never face any consequences.

Then and now, Kassay worked through the wave of flipper interest as it crested, crashed, and inevitably moved on to swamp the next young artist’s practice.

The untitled work at the literal center of the Eleven Rivington show comprises three silvered canvases, separated slightly by an unseen rock, resting on a wooden plinth.

It is now for sale.

According to LA Modern’s provenance, it has changed hands once; the original 2009 buyer (from Florida, save that sales tax!) sold to someone in Los Angeles, who is now selling it.

It is not clear for how much this ur-Kassay changed hands–or when, but it was after trying to sell it for $150k in 2012, and certainly for more than the current estimate. This could be your chance, savvy connoisseur, to acquire a beautiful and historic work of the artist’s, restore balance to the force, and cause someone to lose a hundred thousand dollars, all at once.

Oct 18, 2020, Lot 157: Untitled, Jacob Kassay, est. $40-60,000 [lamodern]

What was Andy Warhol painting red in 1984 that he cut the edge of off after stretching it, and then signed it?

Andy + I went to Sean Lennon’s birthday party in 1984 at Taverne on the Green. I think it was his ninth birthday. On the way there Andy gave me one of the “ties” he had brought to give to Sean. They were the discarded “trimmings” from the edges of his paintings. He called them “ties”, signed them, and gave several to Sean. 

is a thing Keith Haring wrote on Febuary 7, 1989, four and a half years later, on the back of the Warhol “tie,” that his buddy Kermit Oswald had already framed and signed himself in 1988?

Oswald was a childhood friend of Haring, and they stayed tight. He’s been head of the Keith Haring Foundation for decades. He ran a framing and fabrication shop after moving to New York with/to see his buddy. He talks of basically curating/producing/installing Haring’s shows. And he also jointly signed a lot of Haring’s work. It’s interesting to see his contribution to, say, these early painted cutout figures from Haring’s first show at Tony Shafrazi being explicitly circumscribed to “providing the wood.” As if the guy who picked up the plywood always signing things as “Copyright me” is just how things work.

Isn’t it more logical that the guy with the woodshop cut the figure, the guy with the marker drew his design, and then the guy with the woodshop routed it out and painted it in–and then signed his name first?

Anyway, point is, the Haring market seems to tell itself an awful lot of stories to make itself feel good. But the Warhol signed garbage given to Keith in a cab and turned into A Work by Kermit which Keith documented and signed later market seems to be doing just fine. At the Haring Estate stoop sale last week, this thing got a title and sold for 40x its estimate. I’m sure Sean is rummaging through his closet as I type.

Dear Keith, Works from the Personal Collection of Keith Haring: Lot 1056, Andy Warhol, Untitled (Tie), est. $5-7,000, sold for $201,600 [sothebys]

The subject of precariously perched Twomblys prompted Claudio Santambrogio to email, wondering about the painting on the left in this iconic 1966 Horst photo. Surely, it’s not a Twombly.

My first check, of Google, turns up many of the times this Vogue photoshoot of the House of Franchetti-Twombly has been re-published and discussed, and absolutely none of them have a caption or credit for this painting. This shoot is legendary, but atmospheric.

It is also marketable. I have not pinned down when it happened, but there is something swirling around the web in upscale, merchy places like 1stdibs and Artsy, called The Cy Twombly Rome Portfolio. Horst’s images, made for and owned by Condé Nast, are available in limited editions in various sizes, with the “authorization” of the Horst Estate. Interestingly, though, less than half the Twombly photos feature Twombly’s paintings. This feels like a mix of adding the entire contact sheet to the shopping cart, and the Twombly Foundation flexing its vetoing muscles.

Anyway, there is no such compunction to publishing the photo of Twombly’s Richter (Untitled #6), or a straight-on shot of this painting (Untitled #12). None of these photos have caption or credit information (or a Nicola del Roscio to keep them in line.)

Next step: the date of the photo puts a pretty tight constraint on who it could be, and so does Twombly’s circulation pattern. So it’s probably someone he knows in Rome, and likely someone he knows from his gallery at the time, Galleria la Tartaruga. Janis Kounellis made stark black on blank/white paintings around this time, but his are more expressionistic and brushy. Oh wait, Twombly and Kounellis showed together at la Tartaruga in 1961. with Mario Schifano. Who absolutely made paintings like this from 1960-61.

So this is Twombly’s Schifano, which seems to have been mentioned by no one, ever. Was it so utterly obvious that it didn’t need mentioning? Did Mario Schifano have a boyfriend who took over a foundation mighty enough to make even Google blink?

Previously, related: Cy Twombly’s Gerhard Richter
Cy Twombly Rip

Honestly, I cannot say what is more shocking to me at this point: to see a Twombly propped on a dog crate in the spare bedroom, or that someone selling an Upper East Side pre-war has not staged their apartment before putting it on the market. I am thus convinced this is an epic staging flex, the equivalent of sprinkling some hay on your Mercedes Gullwing and calling it a barn find. Or maybe it’s just an homage to the way Twombly installed his Richter. [s/o Katie via Andy]