Contemporary Art Online | New York
Contemporary Art Online | New York
Untitled
Lot Closed
July 21, 04:37 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Josh Smith
b.1976
Untitled
dated 2013 on the reverse
oil on panel
18 by 12 in. (45.7 by 30.4 cm.)
Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2016
“The palm trees in Brooklyn—simultaneously recalling motel art, which is to say kitsch, and Munch, with anxiety percolating in every picture, sometimes to the point of hysteria—play out pictorially what the Manhattan show adumbrated conceptually. The trees are almost Halloween horrors; they reach out menacingly and/or comically, Walt Disney does Mulholland Drive. Trees of death à la Friedrich or Böcklin? The sublime relocates to Venice Beach. But the brilliantly, dreadfully colored sunsets enfold everything from Richter-ish abstractions to creepy clown faces; I saw lots of peering eyes and liver-lipped smiles. Dirty hands reach down from the tequila sunrise to drag us back to the beach.”
David Rimanelli, “New York Reviews: Josh Smith,” ARTFORUM, December 2013