From Pop to Arte Povera — The Best of Milan Contemporary Online

From Pop to Arte Povera — The Best of Milan Contemporary Online

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  Alighiero Boetti, Pisciarsi in bocca, 1979.
  Estimate €18,000–25,000.

  This embroidery on canvas from the late 70s is quintessential Boetti in the juxtaposition between the strictly imposed structure of the 16 letters and their lighthearted meaning. ‘Pisciarsi in bocca’ in fact means ‘to piss in the mouth’ and Boetti would have delighted in this ‘tongue in cheek’ (!) title for a work of art.

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  Mario Schifano, Paesaggio anemico, 1965. Estimate €25,000–35,000.

  Schifano’s star is undeniably on the rise and this may be one of the last chances to acquire one of his ‘anemic landscapes’ at this level. His Italian take on the American Pop Art of the 1960s has gained global recognition. This peaceful yet studied enamel on canvas is a superb example of Schifano’s first executions following his visit to the United States when he began to move away from the monochrome.

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  Antonio Sanfilippo, Senza titolo, 1957. Estimate €8,000–10,000.

  Antonio Sanfilippo is one of the primary figures of Abstract art in postwar Italy. In 1947 the artist joined and signed the Forma 1 manifesto alongside friends such as Piero Dorazio, Giulio Turcato and Carla Accardi, who he married in 1949. This work is a glorious frenzy of mark-making in its vivid colours and thick, darting strokes.

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  Rodolfo Aricò, Senza titolo, circa 1969. Estimate €5,000–7,000.

  The arresting blue of this work with its geometrical, almost architectural structure renders it an exemplary piece by this most Milanese of artists. The artist understood ‘space’ as ‘drama’ and honed his technique in executing his monochromes with thin layers of spray paint to perfection.

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  Maria Lai, Fili e Rami, 1978. Estimate €4,000–5,000.

  This most-celebrated Sardinian sign-maker uses thread as a means of anchoring her practice to reality. Her puncturing of the support is at once violent and therapeutic. Through the confusion of threads, ostensibly tangled and unarranged, we can make out the branches and trunk of a tree, perhaps of knowledge or life itself?

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  Nanda Vigo, Cronotopia, 1974. Estimate €18,000–25,000.

  This work in aluminium, glass and neon harks back to the artist’s years with the Zero group. Vigo was a close friend of celebrated Milanese artists Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani. The play of light on the surface of the work and beyond the glass panels is clearly the product of the research undertaken in those years.

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  Nicola Bolla, Vanitas Toilet, 2006-07. Estimate €8,000–12,000.

  This luminous latrine might seem frivolous at first glance but is, in actual fact, one of many such objects which had had a part to play in art history. It immediately recalls Duchamp’s infamous urinal or Fountain, as well as Maurizio Cattelan’s golden privy at the Guggenheim Museum; not to mention Damien Hirst’s controversial diamond skull, For the Love of God.

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  Thorsten Kirchhoff, Bigamia, 1990. Estimate €5,000–7,000.

  This work is a brilliant example of the domestic scenes depicted by this Danish born artist. A seemingly peaceful scenario of two suitcases placed in a bourgeois hallway is superimposed by capital letters spelling out the word ‘bigamy’. All is not what it seems…

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  Liu Baomin, Extreme illusion n. 10, 2006. Estimate €10,000–15,000.

  The ‘extreme illusion’ of the title evokes ideas of falsehood in our post-truth world. This seemingly modified photographic image is in fact a photo-realistic, large-scale oil on canvas. The skillfully executed figure looks out at us defiantly though we struggle to make out his exact contours through the rain-like vertical brushstrokes.

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  Julio Le Parc, Modulation 970, 1987. Estimate €5,000–7,000.

  Julio Le Parc won the Golden Lion award for painting when he represented Argentina at the Venice Biennale in 1966. He has since had exhibitions in the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. He was a student of both Lucio Fontana and Victor Vasarely and is widely considered a pioneer of both Optical and Kinetic Art.

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    Type: slideshow

    Category: Contemporary Art

    Bacon's 1975 'Self-Portrait', Saville's Spectacular 'Shadow Head' and Important Works by Oehlen, Basquiat, Hockney and Others
  • 

    Type: story

    Category: Contemporary Art

    A Conversation between Light and Darkness in Jenny Saville's Powerful 'Shadow Head'
  • 

    Type: video

    Category: Expert Voices

    How Basquiat Influenced British Rock Band Ride
  • 

    Type: story

    Category: Impressionist & Modern Art

    Magritte's Surrealist Masterpiece, 'La magie noire'
  • 

    Type: story

    Category: Sotheby’s Magazine

    At Home with John Richardson
  • 

    Type: story

    Category: Art Fairs

    Will Chengdu Make Its Mark as the Next Contemporary Art Hub?