Regular Post

Written by Andrea Domenech

7 June 2024

Important private collection. Latest trends: new artistic paradigms

Latest trends: new artistic paradigms

Important private collection

In recent decades and following the rhythm set by the avant-garde, artistic currents have emerged and fed back on each other with fascinating speed, blurring the boundaries between the various trends that have shaped the current artistic landscape. The multiplicity of perspectives, cultural influences and individual visions that make up contemporary artistic practice, translucid through the infinity of styles and techniques that, as conceptual art has already shown us, have revolutionized its own notion. Artists such as Bernar Venet, Damien Hirst, Jan Fabre, Arne Quinze, David Lachapelle, open the door to a universe as intimate as it is collective, which manages to question the viewer in as many ways as their interpretations. Far from representing conventional plastic values, art is moving through a moment of rupture towards new paradigms that expand its limits beyond its traditional boundaries.

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In fact, the irruption of conceptual art gave artistic practice a freedom, unprecedented until then, diluting the distinctions between life and art and questioning where one ends and the other begins. Likewise, the boundaries between disciplines are becoming difficult to elucidate as a result of the constant search for new means of expression that fit and reflect the idiosyncrasies of our time.

In this aspect, the bidding collection clearly reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the artistic practice that has been developing in recent decades, creating a scenario that encourages dialogue and divergent thinking. Enigmatic works, committed, challenging, satirical, with philosophical and spiritual overtones… beyond the eternal debate between what is and what is not art, each one of them is intrinsically linked to issues that, like advertising, religion, science, popular culture or politics, have marked contemporary society. The wide range of media that, from painting and sculpture to installations, conceptual art and photography, find a solid and revealing representation, become not only a vivid testimony of the evolution of artistic practice, but also of our own evolution as a society.

The collection and its artists

In the sculptural field, Bernar Venet’s monumental steel works, characterized by deep mathematical and scientific research, are a lucid example of the bridge that conceptual art builds to science and nature, urging viewers to reflect on the intersection between them.

The fascinating disparity of creative proposals leads us to Jan Fabre who, as one of the most influential multidisciplinary artists of his generation, unfolds in his work a universe as disturbing as it is seductive, where insects lining objects or provocative religious allegories constantly allude both to the dimension of the subject and to ideas linked to metamorphosis, spiritual transformation and the ephemeral nature of life.

The provocation and transgression implicit in part of the current artistic production is materialized in artists such as Wim Delvoy, who has undoubtedly become one of the most controversial and admired figures of the last decades in the contemporary circuit. An example of this is the work “Birdhouse nº8”, in which there is a biting criticism of the denaturalization that man has imposed on the animal kingdom. In fact, issues related to the animal kingdom will be of interest to artists such as Koen Vanmechelen, who have focused their research on the concepts of cross-species hybridization to provoke reflection on questions related to anthropology, bioethics and the fateful temptation of human beings to play God.

On the other hand, and in response to the industrialization and digitalization that has defined modern times, traditional textile art techniques have experienced a resurgence as a way to preserve and revitalize ancestral craft traditions. This is the case of Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, whose production has been aimed at reviving craft techniques such as crochet, which are typical of her country of origin.

Alongside them, artists such as Damien Hirst, Arne Quinze, Lori Hersberger, Jean Michel Folon or Gilbert and George reflect the constant innovation and transformation that the art world has experienced in this era and the way in which it is capable of questioning society by influencing and interpreting the context in which it has developed.

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Arte Contemporáneo, colección, grandes genios, Private collection

Regular Post

Written by Andrea Domenech

26 May 2024

Important private collection: The transformative power of the Second Vanguards.

Auction June 12

The transformative power of the Second Vanguards.

Important private collection

The collection on sale introduces us to the fascinating Second Avant-Garde through its great protagonists: Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, Christo, Yves Klein and Nicky de Saint Phalle.

Around the decade of the 1940s, a vibrant period in the history of art began whose imprint on the world of creativity has had a decisive influence on the future development of artistic practice. The Second Avant-Garde brought with it a second wave of innovation, rupture and transgression that, from the First Avant-Garde, leads us on a stimulating journey through an absolutely transformative 20th century.

Go to online catalog

Go to online catalog

After World War II, a period marked by misery and unrest began, as it could not be otherwise. The horrors of the war wreaked havoc on a political and social level but also defined the new challenges that artistic practice had to face. The failed utopian project of the pre-war avant-gardes and the emptiness caused by the loss of referents translated into a new form of representation dominated by a feeling of tearfulness in which aesthetic enjoyment as it had been understood until then, loses its traditional conception. The political and cultural crisis that shook Europe caused the world’s artistic capital, which until then had been Paris, to move to New York. However, as can be seen in this collection, the polarity between the two creative centers energized and encouraged the artistic practice of this fertile and creatively intense period in which different styles and movements followed one another at a frenetic pace.

In this sense, the ensemble we present here reflects and encourages the dialogue that was established between the artistic proposals of both capitals. Through artists such as Dubuffet and Sam Francis we connect French Informalism with American Abstract Expressionism, whose origin is based on the same foundation: the existential crisis arising from the moral blow of the war. The need to find new forms and codes of representation to express the alienation of human beings and their loss of identity led them to show a special interest in surrealism in their conception of painting as a psychic act. The unconscious and the technique of automatism that now manifests itself on the canvas through signs and calligraphies of wild appearance, completely define this new aesthetic conception based on textures, materials and gestures, that beauty that Dubuffet identified as “an other beauty” in which the work and its surface become a symbol of the image of the world.

At the same time, the COBRA group, represented in the collection by artists such as Karel Appel and Pierre Alechinsky, saw in the primitive art of children and the mentally ill, as well as in surrealist automatism, the most authentic example of free and original art. approaching in this aspect to Dubuffet’s artistic conception. However, unlike the latter, his works are often more visceral due to the influence that German expressionism exerted on them.

Continuing with abstract artistic expressions and in the midst of the triumph of American expressionism, Op Art burst onto the scene. with an opposite premise to that of abstract expressionism: while in the latter the relevant aspect was the relationship between artist and work during the act of creation, figures such as Vasarely put the focus on the spectator, who with his or her action of looking completed and gave meaning to the work.

As a reaction to these movements stripped of external references, Pop Art and New Realism emerged on both sides of the Atlantic. While Pop, led by Andy Warhol, turned triviality into a subject worthy of aesthetic treatment and monumentalized it through the technique of enlargement, reflecting the icons of mass culture in an intelligent and critical way, the new realism of Yves Klein or Niki de Saint Phalle was born to reclaim the return to the social and the human being as the essential subject of art.

Artists such as Christo, initially ascribed to the new realism, evolved towards other creative paradigms, such as Land Art, which show us once again the fertile ground under which the art of the second half of the century developed. Together with his wife, Christo transcended the limits of traditional disciplines by fully embracing the fusion of art with the natural environment. Using nature as a canvas, the couple creatively joined forces to transform our environment into extraordinary scenarios by creating temporary installations that interact harmoniously with the surrounding nature.

The effervescence of this period brought together various movements such as Street Art and Pop Art, which exerted a reciprocal influence. Just as Warhol is considered the king of Pop Art, Haring was undoubtedly the precursor and visible head of Street Art. In fact, both artists have become icons of New York culture in the 1980s as “leaders” of a cultural revolution that came to define an entire era. Their intertwined lives and mutual influence were undoubtedly the catalyst for a new wave in the evolution of popular culture that perfectly defined the spirit of society at the time.

As a whole, this collection of art from the second avant-garde is a testament to the power of art to challenge, inspire and transform. Each work is a window to a world of infinite possibilities, where imagination is the only limit. It is a reminder that art not only reflects reality, but also redefines it.

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Arte Contemporáneo, colección, grandes genios, Private collection

Regular Post

Written by Andrea Domenech

22 May 2024

From Functionality to Art: the dignity of home furnishings

Setdart brings together an important selection of furniture

It is not usual that in the same auction we are able to go through the evolution of storage furniture and understand its adaptations to domestic needs. From the Gothic period to the period of Tous les Louis, both the conception of furniture and its appearance changed drastically, abandoning itself to new concepts such as comfort or mere formal elegance.

Since its beginnings, the northeast of the peninsula has been one of the most important centers in terms of furniture. The lot 35346498, a 15th century Catalan Gothic chest is a paradigmatic example of furniture that was, until the 16th century, a mirror of the status of its owners. With a large truncated pyramidal molded base, they are characterized by a structure of boards assembled with exposed dovetail ties, on which moldings simulating a frame are applied, as well as combs under the top. The front, made up of two or three panels (lot 35346500), presents what is possibly the hallmark of the coffers made in Barcelona, that is, a carved central false upright, openwork and applied according to the technique known as “Barcelona work”.

Already in the 16th century, the lot 35346501 speaks of this new typology that was to become the most representative piece of furniture of the Renaissance and Baroque periods: the writing desk. Although, especially at the end of the seventeenth century, the main function for which they were conceived passed to a second plane, enjoying an almost exclusively apparatus character, they were born as a sort of filing cabinet where the lords deposited the matters they were dealing with in the present. The desk in question, datable to the second half of the 16th century due to its Mannerist carved reliefs -which may remind us of those on the façade of the Sacred Chapel of the Savior of the World in Úbeda-, has a hinged lid on its front, which would be lost in subsequent decades in pursuit of pomp and circumstance.

A new revolution took place in the mid-seventeenth century, as one piece, the chest of drawers, would take center stage from 1730 onwards, combining the symbolism of the desk and the functions of the chest and the trunk, although structurally it is indebted to the sacristy chest of drawers.

The lot 35346503, from around 1700, when the typology was still in the process of assimilation, allows us not only to see how the variant with hinged top was another of the paths that the furniture originally took, but also to understand the relations that took place between Italy and Spain. That curve and counter-curve drawn by the fillets made of lemongrass wood at the ends of the drawers can be seen in Catalan pieces, not necessarily chests of drawers, but desk tables, which can easily be confused with their Italian counterparts or vice versa.

Moving on to the 18th century, it is curious to see the differences that can occur in two pieces possibly made in the same decade: the lot 35346499 and 35346505. The first is an Italian commode, from the Veneto region, from the last quarter of the eighteenth century, whose crescent profile, marquetry work and handles frame it within a neoclassical style; on the other hand, the second is a Catalan cabinet from the historical region of Empordà, of full rococo character, dated 1782, perhaps built as a wedding gift to the spouses whose initials are engraved under the top, this being topped by a pomegranate, symbol of fertility.

Artistic trends were therefore slow to travel far from the main centers, such as Venice, where the recent neoclassical style was already fully assimilated, while in the Empordà, far from the cosmopolitan Barcelona, and close to the nineteenth century, a rococo style was still in force, whose rock carvings had been reviled by the Catalan high spheres for years.

Finally, the 19th century, perhaps without the need to reinvent itself, opted to mix all the styles developed in previous centuries, in a sort of eclectic amalgam that, hand in hand with industry, produced incessantly. The lot 35248722, a mezzanine by Jean-Louis-Benjamin Gros from around 1850, combines, in this sense, the ornamentation of Louis XVI, with a timid concavity on the sides that brings that movement that was dispensed with in the late 18th century.

There are more pieces to keep that complement the above mentioned, disparate typologies from different centers, with an extraordinary quality that make this tender a good opportunity to get a piece of the history of European furniture.

Recommendations, Select Lots, Setdart

furniture

Regular Post

Written by Andrea Domenech

12 May 2024

Important private collection: The Legacy of the great artists of the 20th and 21st Century

The Legacy of the Great Artists of the 20th and 21st Century

Important private collection

Collecting art is one of the most exciting, complex and enigmatic activities that human beings have developed since time immemorial. But what motivations move a certain individual to dedicate part of his or her vital and economic resources to the purchase of art in a passionate, constant and conscious manner?

In this respect, the extraordinary group of more than 100 works that will mark a before and after in the national art market is a paradigmatic example of a contemporary art collection, forged on the basis of a meticulous research work developed over two decades with an expert eye and a passion and artistic sensitivity that translucent in each work. In this sense, the creator of this anthological collection of works shows us, once again, that any good collection should be understood as an entity in continuous development that evolves as our understanding, knowledge and interests evolve.

Go to online catalog

Go to online catalog

With a scientific background, but with an innate intuition and creative spirit, our collector was initiated into the exciting path of the contemporary art world as a result of his growth as a professional in the world of advertising. His travels around the world gave him the opportunity to discover what he calls “art in motion”, that which, in the midst of the hustle and bustle and frenetic pace of cities like New York, is capable of transforming everyday life. In fact, it was precisely in New York City when the sight through his airplane window of the thousands of undulating saffron-colored scarves that Christo had installed in his “Gates” in Central Park sparked a need to experiment with contemporary art, which led to his irrepressible passion for collecting.

Talking with him, we became aware of the deep significance he gives to the fact of collecting and, therefore, of the transcendence and impact that art has had on his life. The epiphany he felt after his encounter with Christo’s work made him understand the transformative capacity of art, whose power transcends the merely aesthetic to touch the most intimate layers of the human psyche.

In this respect, each of the meticulously selected works embodies a narrative, a story waiting to be discovered and interpreted anew with every glance, constantly evolving as we do. In fact, the relationship established between art and science through many of the great artists that are part of the collection, is another example of the indivisible link that for him exists between life and art, acting as two sides of the same coin that feed back and enrich each other.

The collection, developed in a time frame ranging from the second avant-garde to the most current artistic expressions, is, as a whole, a fascinating account of the legacy that artists of the caliber of Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, Keith Haring, Christo, Jean Dubuffet, Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky, Peter Haley, Damien Hirst, Bernar Venet, or Jan Fabre have given to the most recent history. The wide range of media, from painting and sculpture to installations, conceptual art and photography, find a solid and revealing representation and become not only a vivid testimony of the evolution of artistic practice, but also evidence of our own evolution as a society.

After the end of the Second World War, a new stage shook the artistic panorama: the second avant-garde began and with it a fertile and creatively intense period in which different styles and movements followed one another at a frenetic pace. The political and cultural crisis that ravaged Europe caused the world’s artistic capital to move from Paris to New York. In this sense, the collection we present here reflects and encourages the dialogue established between the artistic proposals of both capitals. From the hand of artists as decisive as Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Jean Dubuffet, Keith Haring, Sam Francis, Pierre Alechinsky, Victor Vasarely, Christo or Ives Klein we begin an exciting journey that introduces us to informalism, following with pop art, kinetic art or new realism until we reach the irruption of conceptual art.

In recent decades and advancing at the pace set by the avant-garde, artistic currents emerged and fed back on each other with fascinating speed, blurring the boundaries between the various trends that have shaped the current artistic landscape. The multiplicity of perspectives, cultural influences and individual visions that make up contemporary artistic practice, translucid through the infinite number of styles and techniques that, as conceptual art has already shown us, have revolutionized the very notion of art.