Tony Feher, Space Blanket, Binder Clip

a crumpled gold tone mylar space blanket like the kind you get when you finish the new york marathon, or go camping, is formed into the rough potato shape of a boulder, but the size of a cat, and the weight of a piece of paper. somewhere inside it is a binder clip, holding it together since 2009. the rest is just care in not scrunching it. tony feher made this and his dealer brent sikkema had it, and now christie's is selling it (in feb 2025)
Tony Feher, Untitled, 2009, space blanket & binder clip, 18 x 14 x 11 in., selling from the estate of Brent Sikkema at Christie’s Feb. 28

One of the works I’d love to live with is a John Chamberlain foam sculpture. Just to be able to study its topology, reverse engineer in my head the gestures and knotting that produced it, shade it from the sun, gently sweep up the crumbs from around its pedestal as it crumbles to dust. ars brevis, vita brevis.

a photo of a photo in a book. Ugo Mulas' 1969-70 black and white photo of cy twombly's via monserrato palazzo centers on a giant john chamberlain foam sculpture, sheets of polyurethane foam cut and wrapped with cord in a way that makes a contorted, compacted abstract sculptural shape, which nevertheless, at least from mulas's angle, resembles the form of an anglerfish, thanks in no small part to the flexible neck reading lamp sticking up behind it. there is also a picasso drawing of a face behind it, framed and propped on the floor, while through two marble framed doorways, are a roman bust on a marble column and a warhol painting of a grid of botulism-filled tuna cans. a bright sunlight beam hits the chamberlain, so it's probably been roasted to dust by now. from the 2019 book, cy twombly homes and studios.
An Ugo Mulas photo from 1969/70 of the biggest Chamberlain foam sculpture I’ve ever seen, in the Franchetti-Twombly’s palazzo in Rome, as published in Cy Twombly Homes & Studios

I think this gorgeous Tony Feher sculpture made out of a crumpled gold mylar space blanket and a binder clip does a lot of the same thing, while also catching the sun. Though their material is doomed, the foam pieces would at least, presumably hold their shape when handled. I don’t know how Feher deployed that binder clip, but I imagine keeping this shape requires considerably more care. From the estate of Brent Sikkema.

Lot 101, Tony Feher, Untitled, 2009, est. $3-5,000 [update: sold for $2,394, exactly 10% of the price of the perfet nam june paik color bars painting, absolute bargains are being had at…] [christies]