Wade Guytons, Untitled, 2018 (32 x 26 in.) and 2020 (40 x 30 in.), for sale at Christie’s 30 Sept 2025
If you’re keeping track at home, 5-7 years seems to be the auction house’s recommended amount of time to wait before selling the artworks the very prominent and generous artist whose studio you worked in gave to you—and which, let’s be real, you might have actually made in the first place.
nailed it
Besides their adorably giftable scale, though, what strikes me about these two Wade Guyton paintings is that they both have nail holes in the top and bottom edges, as if they were nailed to the wall at some point before they were stretched. And now I want to see a show of unstretched Guytons nailed to the wall, curling just a little bit, and flapping in the breeze, as they are wont to do.
X Poster (Untitled, 2007, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 84 x 69 inches, WG1211), 2019, UV-resistant ink on paper on the right and, presumably, actual Untitled, 2007, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 84 x 69 inches, WG1211 on the left. image via PrintedMatter
For six years, from 2014-19, Guyton made full-scale print facsimiles of his paintings as fundraising editions for Printed Matter. They were all posters of earlier black X-on-white paintings, and folding them by hand felt like part of the concept. From the proofs installed at the Beyeler, that does not seem to be the case anymore. These look as flat as the day they rolled off the Epson.
TFW I thought I’d seen these before, not just at the Beyeler, and I was like, “Duh, that’s his MO.” But no, I don’t mean in the “all Guytons look alike” mode. I mean in the sense that I felt like I’d seen these paintings before, at Guyton’s 2023 show at Matthew Marks. The X painting, WG5707, depicts a different scan of a different, earlier X painting than the one at Marks. And in fact, the 2024 Beyeler painting in the 2025 Beyeler print has striations that look like a photo of a monitor of a scan of a transparency of a painting, rather than just a scan of a transparency of a painting.
the jpg rendering of the 2025 print of the 2024 Beyeler painting, WG5703
But the other one, WG5703, the photo of Guyton’s studio floor, is, in fact, the same photo, though not the same painting.
Guyton likes to paint, photograph, and repaint the floor of his studio, and these Clyfford Still-like layered abstractions are the glorious result. But what these two paintings show is not found wear & tear. The tape, the shoe[?] in the lower left corner, the separations [not just layering, it turns out] of color. This is the same photo, in different states, printed on canvas, twice. Three times, actually; the Beyeler already has another variation from 2021.
But from observing these little differences in the same content, Guyton has expanded his source image folder to include screenshots of the Times, and photos of his studio, his work, and his life. His 2021 show at Marks in LA included images of Guyton recording his temperature. In 2023 there were paintings made of photos of protests, and a Manet ham.
As the vagaries of printing become absorbed into the language of his work, Guyton has expanded what he says by making work of what he sees. His work, his shows, images, and the world around him, have all become animating subjects of his mature process. Mature, but not static; processes are revealed in between the finding and the printing. As these two floor paintings show, the images flowing around him may also be manipulated, altered, and created.
At first I thought the recursiveness was new, too, but I think it was always there; the works, their shifting formats, their nested titles, their numbering system, all make us aware of the artist’s awareness. The beauty of that churn, that cycle, of making and showing and remaking, is a compelling subject for at least a hundred people going to Basel for the 20th or 30th time for buying and selling. One hundred plus ten artist proofs.
One of my favorite things to discover about Maria Lind’s 2012 Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies show was the Wade Guyton narrative arc. And how Guyton’s massive, black painted plywood floor in the Konsthall raised the profile of the his black printed plywood edition in Lind’s controversial selling show at Bukowskis auction house. And how that very example did not sell then. And it did not sell in 2019. And it did not sell again in 2022.
And so the “Distinguished European Collector” who’s been stuck with it—I like to think it’s the Lundins—has had to keep enjoying what is truly, as far as these things go, an iconic work. How would it be?
Well, for a brief shining moment, now you can find out.
One reason I thought of for why this excellent example of Guyton’s work didn’t sell was the volume. Not just that it is an edition, but that there are actually two editions. When Guyton made this 8×4 ft plywood edition of seven in 2008, he also made a Parkett edition of 60 [38 numbered, XXII proofs].
But as I’ve noted before, what matters about the works of Guyton’s Black Paintings Era, which were all produced using the same monochromatic bigblack.tif file, is that they exist as a series. The editions, even more so. I’m getting shivers just imagining them being made all at once, 22 sheets of ply pumped into the inkjet printer, and admiring the the little differences.
Like being little. Though it elegantly maintains the proportion and scale of the ed. 7, Guyton’s untitled edition for Parkett 83 is a quarter of the size [4 x 2 ft., 15 sheets/4 = 60.]
Think what it’s like to move it around, perhaps in your car, or even in your pickup, or to store it, or to ship it. What the Parkett edition may lack in surface area, it more than makes up for in convenience.
And now, somehow, Parkett has one left, the “last available work from a previously sold-out edition.”
