Les ventes new-yorkaises au plus haut [oct. 07]

Les ventes new-yorkaises au plus haut [oct. 07]

artlover7665588898

Les 6 et 7 novembre prochains vont être orchestrées à New York les deux vacations phares de la saison de ventes. Sotheby´s et Christie´s ont réuni pour l´occasion une sélection d´œuvres majeures de Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Cézanne, ou encore Franz Marc. A ce jour, les deux auctionners n´avaient jamais présenté d´estimations aussi hautes.

Le marathon d´enchères millionnaires va débuter chez Christie´s, le 6 novembre avec une dispersion de 94 lots impressionnistes et modernes. Le bal des enchères commence avec une timide œuvre de Pablo PICASSO, une petite Pomme réalisée en 1918 estimée 200 000 – 300 000 $ ; mais très vite la salle risque de vibrer avec le lot numéro 5, une autre œuvre de Pablo Picasso : un Homme A la Pipe de 1968 estimé 12 – 16 millions de dollars. S´enchaîne six lots plus tard un quadriptique de Camille PISSARRO illustrant les quatre saisons, proposé pour 12 – 18 millions de dollars. Cet ensemble historique n´en est pas à sa première présentation aux enchères ! Déjà en 1891, il avait été acquis 1,155 francs à Drouot (cf : Dictionnaire de Ventes d´Art Hyppolite Mireur – Tome VI – page2). La dernière fois était en novembre 2004 chez Christie´s. Le marteau était tombé à hauteur de 8 millions de dollars.

Soulignons aussi les 15 – 20 millions de dollars attendus pour L'Odalisque, harmonie bleue d´Henri MATISSE, réalisée en 1937, ou encore les 10-15 millions de dollars pour une étude pour Les constructeurs, fond bleu de Fernand LÉGER. Deux importantes toiles d'Amedeo MODIGLIANI sont aussi mises à la vente : un Portrait du sculpteur Oscar Miestchaninoff de 1916, acquis 8,5 millions de dollars en 1995, est attendu à 18 – 25 millions de dollars et une Jeune fille assise en chemise (1918) est proposée pour 9 – 12 millions de dollars. Cette dernière avait été adjugée 4,4 millions de dollars en mai 1998 chez Christie´s. Si l´on s´en tient au module de prix actualisé réalisé par Artprice (Artprice Indicator), ces deux estimations, bien que nettement supérieures aux prix d´acquisitions, restent tout à fait dans la lignée de l´évolution de la cote de Modigliani au cours de ces 12 dernières années, avec notamment un bond de +65% en 2004. Deux rares tableaux de Paul CÉZANNE sont à l´honneur : une vue de Jas de Bouffan, réalisée en 1890-1894 au domicile de l´artiste (est. 12 – 16 millions de dollars), et une nature morte, sujet de prédilection de l´artiste, intitulée Compotier et Assiette de Biscuits (10 – 15 millions de dollars). Mais l´une des pièces les plus médiatiques de la vente revient au peintre expressionniste allemand August MACKE : Paar im Wald (1912), estimée 15 – 25 millions de dollars pourrait bien devenir l´œuvre la plus chère de l´artiste.

Le 7 novembre, Sotheby´s concentre sa vente en 76 lots, mais entame activement sa vacation avec la dispersion d´un exceptionnel ensemble de 6 dessins d´Egon SCHIELE, dont Selbstbildnis mit kariertem Hemd, une gouache estimée 4,5 – 6,5 millions de dollars. Parmi les lots phares, citons The Fields, un grand paysage de Vincent GOGH van, exécuté en 1890, sera proposé pour 28 – 35 millions de dollars ; au lot 18, Sotheby´s disperse pour 40 – 60 millions de dollars, un exceptionnel tableau de Paul GAUGUIN de 1892 : Te Poipoi (Le matin). Celui-ci a déjà fait un passage aux enchères lors de la vente d´atelier de 1895, au cours de laquelle l´œuvre avait été adjugé à peine 320 francs ! Soit presque 4 fois moins que l´ensemble de Pissarro.

Un important bronze de Pablo Picasso, haut de 80 cm et représentant Dora Maar, fondu à 4 exemplaires, est présenté à 20 – 30 millions de dollars. Jamais de sculpture n´avait encore été dispersée dans de telles fourchettes de prix ! D´autres œuvres de Picasso enrichissent la vente, dont la Lampe, une toile de 1931 estimée 25 – 35 millions de dollars, conservée dans la famille de l´artiste jusqu´à ce jour, mais aussi une œuvre version d´Homme à La Pipe, réalisée en 1969, plus grande, mais très semblable à celle dispersée la veille chez Christie´s ! D´ailleurs, tout comme sa rivale, Sotheby´s propose aussi une splendide toile d´Henri MATISSE : intitulée Espagnole (Buste), la toile de 1922 est affichée à 12 – 16 millions de dollars. Le tableau The Waterfall: Women beneath a Waterfall de Franz Marc, autre star de l´expressionnisme allemand, sera lui aussi l´un des clous de la vente. Estimé 20 – 30 millions de dollars, la toile de 1912 avait été acquise tout juste 4,6 millions de £ (7,6 millions de dollars) en 1999, soit 3 à 4 fois moins que son actuelle estimation ! En 1974, l´œuvre avait été dispersée à Londres sous le titre La Cascade pour 45 000 £ (495 000 F – Annuaire de Ventes Mayer 1975 – p. 761). Le lot 15 est peut-être celui qui symbolise le mieux la frénésie actuelle, mais aussi les potentielles tensions du marché. Femmes dans un jardin, une toile d´Auguste RENOIR réalisée en 1873 est proposée à 8 – 12 millions de dollars ! Cette dernière a été acquise il y a tout juste 18 mois, chez Sotheby´s pour 4,4 millions de £ (8,2 millions de dollars). Il va de soit que si les enchères ne flirtent pas avec la fourchette haute, soit la pièce sera ravalée, soit son propriétaire devra se résigner à voir son capital déprécier. Mais dans tous les cas, dans le contexte actuelle, le jeu des courts aller-retours sur le marché ne peu se faire sans risque.

Gagosian Gallery Presents Tracey Emin - You Left Me Breathing

Gagosian Gallery Presents Tracey Emin - You Left Me Breathing artlover387558898868

Tracey Emin, Harder and Better, 2007 Embroidered cotton 50 x 52 inches (127 x 132cm)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA.-Gagosian Gallery presents You Left Me Breathing, Tracey Emin's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, on view November 2 - December 22, 2007. Emin's art is one of full disclosure. In her active self-promotion in both high art and popular media, she lays bare her hopes, humiliations, failures, and successes with equal measures of humor and pathos. (In addition to a busy international exhibition schedule, she writes a weekly column for the British newspaper, The Independent; her memoirs have been published in book form; she has appeared in promotional advertising, and is a fixture on the London social scene).The confessional candor and sexual explicitness of much of Emin's art, combined with her use of techniques and crafts usually associated with women's work, firmly grounds her within contemporary feminist discourse, while her interest in the work of expressionists Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele is evident in her paintings, monoprints and drawings, which explore complex personal states and ideas of stylized self-representation. Emin's wide-ranging oeuvre includes drawing, sculpture, video, photography, painting, and needlework. This exhibition's title plays on a certain ambiguity--of a woman left abused, half-dead, yet still breathing, or a woman left breathless after making love. "You Left Me Breathing" treats the full breadth of Emin's activities, from a series of early drawings, Family Suite II (1994) to new monoprints; from diminutive stitched texts to monumental, hand- embroidered textile assemblages. The fragility of her tenuous, impassioned drawings translates into large-scale paintings with her characteristically nervous brushwork. Eye-catching neon wall sculptures transpose her innermost thoughts into permanent luminous scrawls. Among the most spectacular works in the exhibition are a group of delicate wood and jesmonite sculptures, which expand on the spirals, rollercoasters, and bridges of recent years. Others incorporate cast bronze figures – seagulls, songbirds, and frogs—or objects combining cement and glass, which are placed on tables or bundled bases made from found timbers. Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963. Her work has been exhibited internationally in many solo and group exhibitions. In 1999 she was short listed for the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery, London. Solo exhibitions include the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Haus der Kunst, Munich, and the Museum of Modern Art Oxford (all 2002); the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2003) and Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul (2004). In 2007, she represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. Emin lives and works in London. A fully illustrated catalogue will be available, with an essay by Jennifer Doyle, Associate Professor of American literature, gender studies, and visual studies at Duke University.

Jeff Koons - La promesse d'un record

Jeff Koons - La promesse d'un record

artlover877655466768888

Dans les années 80, Jeff Koons détourne des objets de consommation courante comme des aspirateurs, des ballons de basket ou divers bibelots. Contrairement à Duchamp qui, avec ses ready made, ne cherchait pas de délectation esthétique en exposant des objets triviaux, Koons glorifie les produits de consommation dans une esthétique Pop. L´artiste américain ambitionnait de toucher le plus grand nombre en optant pour la culture populaire… le pari est réussi : il est désormais l´un des artistes les plus coté et les plus médiatique !

En 2004, Jeff KOONS était l´artiste contemporain américain (né après 1945) le plus valorisé avec un produit des ventes annuel de 18,5 millions de dollars pour 36 œuvres vendues… somme qui pourrait être dépassé à l´automne 2007 en un seul coup de marteau ! En effet, les amateurs de Jeff Koons attendent avec impatience les vacations new-yorkaises de Christie´s le 13 novembre et de Sotheby´s le 14 novembre, au cours desquelles deux sculptures monumentales Blue Diamond, une bague de sept pieds de large (210 cm) évoquant avec démesure la Saint-Valentin, et Hanging Heart (Magenta and Gold) seront soumises à enchères.

Chacune de ces deux œuvres est susceptible de décrocher plus de 15 millions de dollars! Hanging Heart (Magenta and Gold) par exemple, sera proposée chez Sotheby´s pour une fourchette d´estimation comprise entre 15 et 20 millions dollars ! Des prévisions bien au-delà de son record actuel, signé chez le même auctioneer en mai 2001 pour une céramique kitsch et dorée représentant Mickael Jackson et son singe Bubbles. Editée à trois exemplaires, l´œuvre fut emportée pour 5,1 millions de dollars, un sommet qui ne fut pas réitéré depuis… Hanging Heart devrait faire le poids pour un nouveau record : ce cœur monumental de 2 tonnes a nécessité 6 000 heures de travail et une version de l´œuvre faisait la fierté de la collection Pinault lors de l´ouverture au public du Palazzo Grassi à Venise en 2006!
Au 30 juin 2007, l´artiste tenait la neuvième position du classement des artistes contemporains par produit des ventes (voir TOP 500 p.31-35 du Marché de l´art contemporain 2006/2007 par Artprice)… un classement qui pourrait profondément changer après les grandes dispersions new-yorkaises de novembre.

Hanging Heart et Blue Diamond font partie de sa série Celebration. Débutée en 1994, elle comprend aujourd´hui vingt sculptures différentes et seize peintures nourries d´inspirations enfantines. Koons s´exprime le plus souvent en trois dimensions, toutes séries confondues. En ventes publiques ses sculptures et céramiques représentent 75% des transactions pour 85% du produit des ventes. Les œuvres les plus chères sont ses sculptures en bronze, bois polychromes ou marbre qui signent fréquemment des coups de marteau millionnaires : entre janvier 2001 et octobre 2007, pas moins de 17 sculptures changèrent de main entre 1 million et 5 millions de dollars!

Les premiers collectionneurs de Jeff Koons peuvent se féliciter de leurs acquisitions. Par exemple, le meilleur enchérisseur pour Two ball 50/50 tank dispersé le 7 mai 1992 chez Sotheby´s NY emporta l´installation pour 65 000 dollars. Cette œuvre de la série Equilibrium contient deux ballons de basket à moitié immergés dans un aquarium et fut conçue grâce à l'aide du Dr. Richard Feynman, Prix Nobel de Physique. En 2000, elle partit pour 220 000 dollars chez Phillips NY, tandis qu´une version plus grande avec trois ballons doubla presque cette mise en 2005 (420 000 dollars, Christie´s NY).

Le nombre important de multiples à grand tirage explique que 50% des œuvres signées Koons soient abordables pour moins de 2 500 euros. Mais les prix grimpent indéniablement. Ses Ballon Dog en porcelaine métallisée édités à 2300 exemplaires par exemple, se négociaient entre 1 200 et 1 800 euros en 2002 tandis qu´il faut débourser entre 2 000 et 4 000 euros aujourd´hui. Ses Puppies, de petits vases en porcelaine blanche de 45 cm de haut produits à 3 000 exemplaires, s´échangent dans la même fourchette de prix. En décembre 2002, un Puppy était pourtant boudé chez Cornette de Saint-Cyr à Paris pour une estimation basse de 800 euros seulement.

A Body Without Limits at Joan Miró Foundation

A Body Without Limits at Joan Miró Foundation artlover87768878848

BARCELONA, SPAIN.-The Joan Miró Foundation presents “A body without limits”, a major exhibition curated by the art historian Jean-Louis Prat and sponsored by BBVA. Its aim is to help us understand the changes in the portrayal of the human body that took place in the twentieth century, a period when the human figure ceased to be treated merely as a portrait or a symbol of beauty and became a vehicle for expressing emotions. “A body without limits” contains over 90 paintings and sculptures produced between 1900 and 2007 by 41 artists from all the main avant-garde movements, including Rodin, Bonnard, Schiele, Kirchner, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, Miró, Moore, Dubuffet, Basquiat, Tàpies and Fischl, among others. Many of the pieces on show come from private collections and offer a unique opportunity to see at first hand works by the masters of modern art. The works are arranged in such a way as to demonstrate by confrontation, juxtaposition or contrast the richness of the artistic languages used in the last century as well as the individual contributions of each of the artists. For centuries, resemblance to reality was essential in painting. The academies studied the body in order to present beautiful images, with idealised forms fixed by convention. Then came the invention of photography and its ability to reproduce reality, which was without doubt one of the most important developments, and led artists to look at new ways of representing the human body. A new mood emerged from these changes – a certain freedom that affected the behaviour of creative artists. In 1863, Manet’s painting Olympia forged a new path in the representation of the human figure in art, with the sitter depicted as a contemporary of the artist and unashamedly displaying her body to the viewer. It is a real nude body, not an academic study; an anonymous body that is a forthright expression of modernity, rather than a representation of ancient divinities. Karl Marx’s social revolution and the discovery of hitherto unexplored limits of sexuality by Sigmund Freud opened the door to the emergence of new concepts and passions that permitted a negation of the past and the liberation of the body and the manner of representing it. Unfortunately, the last century also brought with it new evils that were the result of war and that altered the forms of representation. From then on, the nude ceased to be idealised and began to be shown for what it is. Beauty was no longer linked to formalism and its new canons permitted all sorts of aesthetic revolutions and a new sense of freedom of creation and expression. This trend became firmly established, and it was the variations in the way of depicting the body that would mark the changes of style. The Expressionists, for instance, painted a tormented body; the Cubists incorporated aspects of primitive art; the Surrealists emphasised the eroticism of the nude; and after the Second World War, the tormented body returned with artists such as De Kooning, Bacon and Freud. The catalogue of “A body without limits” is published by the Foundation in Catalan, Spanish and English, with articles by Jean-Louis Prat, Jorge Semprún and José Luis Pardo and commentaries on the artists by the curator and other authors. A seminar – A body without limits (The human body and modernity) – will be held from 6 November to 13 December 2007 in collaboration with the Universitat de Barcelona and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, which will carry academic credits for students enrolling on it. Taking part will be distinguished specialists in contemporary art, university teachers and art critics, among them Jean-Louis Prat, curator of the exhibition, who will start off the series of lectures with a review of the representation of the human body in the twentieth century. Pierre Daix, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, Robert Lubar, Lourdes Cirlot, Ángel González, Fèlix Fanés, Antoni Llena, Imma Julián and Anna Maria Guasch will focus on some of the artists whose works are included in the exhibition. “A body without limits” takes viewers on a tour of the history of twentieth-century art, in a review of the past that offers visions of the human body that never cease to surprise. It is a body that can be shown openly, without inhibitions, simply for the extreme pleasure of contemplating it in all its truth.

Sotheby's To Sell Turner's Lost Masterpiece: Bamborough Castle - Not Seen For 118 Years

Sotheby's To Sell Turner's Lost Masterpiece: Bamborough Castle - Not Seen For 118 Years artlover8799886788868

J.M.W. Turner, Bamborough Castle, watercolour, estimate: £1.5–2.5 million. © Sotheby's Images.

LONDON, ENGLAND Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A. (1775-1851) is Britain’s greatest watercolourist and the last few years have seen him take centre stage like never before. In July of this year Sotheby’s offered for sale the Ullens Collection, the finest collection of privately-owned Turner watercolours to have come to the market in living memory, which saw the artist’s Lungernzee realise £3.6 million. Hot on the heels of this, a major exhibition entitled J.M.W.Turner has just opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. This actually follows record new prices in 2006 when one of Turner’s Venice masterpieces sold for $35.8 million in New York while his The Blue Rigi fetched £5.8 million in London. Now Sotheby’s London is delighted to announce that it will continue the Turner focus, offering the artist’s lost masterpiece, Bamborough Castle, on Wednesday, December 5, 2007. Described by the Graphic Society in 1837 as “one of the finest watercolour-drawings in the world” this major work looks set to generate huge excitement in the academic and collecting worlds alike. It is expected to fetch in excess of £1.5 million. Dating from the mid 1830s, Turner’s Bamborough Castle has spent most of its life to date in the possession of a distinguished private collection and, remarkably, it has not been seen on the open market since 1872 - some 135 years. In 1872 it was sold as part of the Joseph Gillott collection in London and realised £3,309, the highest price ever achieved for a watercolour at the time. The Earl of Dudley was the purchaser on this occasion but later - in about 1890 - the picture passed into the hands of one of the great American collecting families, that of the Vanderbilts. The Vanderbilt family played a significant role in the history of the United States; they built a shipping and railroad empire during the 19th century which made them one of the wealthiest families in the world. Since entering the collection of Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt, the watercolour has passed down through successive generations of the family while the outside world has remained mystified as to its whereabouts. Listed as untraced in Andrew Wilton’s Catalogue of Turner Watercolours published in 1979, the work has not been seen in public since 1889. Perched on an outcrop on the very edge of the North Sea at Bamborough, Northumberland, Bamborough Castle is one of England’s finest castles. In his watercolour, Turner has chosen to show the castle from its north side, the angle which clearly portrays the height and presence of the castle’s impressive Norman walls. The formidable castle is serenely depicted as the one point of safety in the midst of a charged landscape. In the foreground, a woman and girl appear to cower from the large roiling waves while a ship struggles to reach the security of the land under the great storm clouds. In the 19th century the castle had a reputation for being one of the great places of refuge on the British coast during storms for sailors in distress. It actually had rooms within the walls that were put aside for rescued sailors as well as a marine rescue party that constantly patrolled an eight-mile stretch of the coast north and south of the castle. Turner was a great admirer of such details and he captures the castle’s preparations with a rocket launched in the distance and people gathered at the waters-edge, ready to rescue the sailors who are rowing away from their vessel that has struck the massive rocks. The watercolour, which measures 505x705mm, relates to an earlier pencil drawing of the castle from 1797. The work has all of Turner’s signature elements; his energetic handling of colour which is often applied in rapid scratch-like strokes, or smeared into place with his fingertips, or scratched away with the tip of a brush to reveal the paper beneath. Henry Wemyss, Head of British Watercolours at Sotheby’s, comments: “This watercolour fully demonstrates the genius of Turner and it’s a real treat to have the privilege of bringing it to sale. Its recent re-discovery after more than a century away from the public eye, alongside its dramatic and powerful British subject, result in an incredibly rare and special work of art. The market in 1872 made it not only the most valuable watercolour, but more expensive than many Turner oils. I think the Graphic Society got it right in 1837 when they described it as ‘one of the finest watercolour-drawings in the world.’” Research on the painting is still in progress, but it is possible that the work may shed new light on Turner’s working practices. It seems, for instance, that here Turner has backed the sheet of paper with two further laminated sheets – no doubt to strengthen the paper but also, possibly to intensify the colours he used. More details about the fascinating work, and the story behind it, will be revealed over the coming months.

ANARCHY IN THE U.K.

ANARCHY IN THE U.K. artlover298709877008

Benny Profane’s Barbed Wire Kiss (2006), Zak Smith’s porno debut

Zak Smith Clarissa looking like a Pink Floyd groupie 2001 $20,400 Rago Auctions Nov. 18, 2006

Zak Smith Girls in the Naked Girl Business: Mandy Morbid (II) 2007 Courtesy Fredericks & Freiser

Zak Smith Girls in the Naked Girl Business: Bella Vendetta 2007 Courtesy Fredericks & Freisero

Zak Smith Sol LeWitt I Spit on Your Grave 2007 Courtesy Fredericks & Freiser

Zak Smith The Title Didn’t Really Explain Anything So He Went Back to Looking at the Painting 2007 Courtesy Fredericks & Freiser

Zak Smith Things I Drew and Pinned to the Wall 2007 Courtesy Fredericks & Freiser

Zak Smith with his mother, Karen Haas, and her husband, Dan Larson, at Fredericks & Freiser, Sept. 28, 2005 Photo by Mary Barone

"If You Want Something Done Left, Do It Yourself," Oct. 13-Nov. 11, 2007, at Fred, Ltd., 45 Vyner Street, London E2 9DQ England

Everyone knows that avant-garde artists hate the "establishment" and love noncommittal sex. Zak Smith is making a living combining the two.

This mohawked art star is best known, of course, for his appearance at the Whitney Biennial in New York a few years back, which showcased his intricate drawings illustrating Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow one page at a time. Not content simply to be a hot art-market property -- his 2001 Clarissa Looking Like a Pink Floyd Groupie sold for $20,400 at Rago Auctions last year -- Smith went on to don the mantle of porn star, acting in Benny Profane’s 2006 "alternative porn" Barbed Wire Kiss. According to a witness to the shoot at Fleshbot.com, "Smith handled his first scrutinized scene with aplomb."

This month, the 31-year-old artist, anarchist and porn star has a solo show at Fred in London. Smith’s first U.K. exhibition presents about 200 small works from the series, "Drawings from around the time I became a porn star," a few abstract paintings and several portraits from the ongoing series, "Girls in the Naked Girl Business." As it turns out, the connection between Smith’s two pastimes is not random -- making art about his sex life and living his sex life as art are both facets of his DIY punk ethos.

Few artists boast both a Yale MFA and a working porn name ("Zak Sabbath"). But Smith’s intimate relationship (in all senses) with the models in his "Girls in the Naked Girl Business" series makes his work down-to-earth rather than theory-laden. When asked how his adult career is going, for instance, Smith replied, "Well, Sasha Grey just ate out Mandy Morbid in my bathroom and then bought me lunch at Taco Bell -- it's hard to complain."

Smith’s works at Fred, then, are really about community, the community formed by shared transgression. In his own way, Smith is a paragon of integrity, adamant in defense of his counterculture ties and annoyed that his politics are often disregarded by the public. Shown in their own intimate habitats, Smith's subjects are embedded in intricate graphic compositions of pattern and texture, giving the viewer a glimpse into the guarded lairs of punk's femme fatales.

In his recent works, Smith has severely reduced his palette, presenting isolated points of color against a chaotic and obsessively complex black-and-white background -- as in Mandy Morbid II (2007) -- the better to isolate the important details. Smith’s interiors speak volumes about his subject, whether it be the bohemian clutter that is a sign of anti-materialism or the stuffed animals that suggest hidden vulnerabilities on the part of their goth-girl owners.

The deviance of Smith’s punk pin-ups goes beyond brazen sexuality and in-your-face individuality, which can be admirable. Smith's subjects are role models for desire at its most abject. Bella Vendetta (2007), for example, stares down the viewer with defiance, as if she’s expecting a fight. In fact, Smith confides, Bella is a purveyor of "blood porn." She hangs from flesh hooks just for "fun."

In nihilistic punk style, this community is defined by violent rejection. Smith’s works at Fred specifically imply a forceful reaction to the pretensions of the art world, confronting it an alternate set of "artists" who fully embrace their exhibitionism. To market-oriented artistes and theory-minded critics, Smith presents a milieu the appeal of which is considerably more primal and unmediated.

His more abstract compositions bear out this analysis. If the art influences Smith cites are Nicholas DiGenova, Phil Frost, Sean McCarthy and Peter Callesen, the abstract acrylic Sol LeWitt, I spit on your grave (2007) makes his real (negative) influence clear -- the hues of blue and violet are soothing in color, rich with immediate pleasure, but the shapes are frenzied in form, as if to mock the Conceptualist control that underlies LeWitt’s esthetc. Even more explicitly about such rejection is the wondrously complex composition of interlocking blocks of skittering color titled The Title Didn't Really Explain Anything So He Went Back to Looking at the Painting.

The third work completing this theme is Things I Drew and Pinned to the Wall. Echoing the all-over intricacy of the other two, the work features a pair of painted scissors hanging from one of the color dots at the bottom, making it clear that we are looking at a drawing of the dense grid of the artist’s riotous compositions pinned up in his apartment. It is the image of art as riotously self-involved, immersed in the immediacy of living.

Smith’s anarchism is the glue holding his worldview together. And so, his works are hedonistic -- but also achingly earnest. When some of these drawings debuted last summer at Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, Smith titled the show, "Half the Artist’s Proceeds from this Show Will Go to Benefit the Victims of God and Capitalism." This time out, a portion of the artist’s profits are being donated to Food not Bombs, the West Memphis 3 (see www.wm3.org) and other anarchist and activist causes. He mocks the "platinum and Lucite" installations and "Prada cufflinks" of his peers in the art world. Avant-garde he is; ironic he is not.

POPULAR PAINTINGS

POPULAR PAINTINGS artlover348769858

Yan Pei-Ming Red Self-Portrait 2007 Courtesy of David Zwirner Gallery, New York, and Galleria Massimo di Carlo, Milan

Francesca DiMattio Black Ship 2006 Courtesy of Salon 94, New York

Kristina Jansson If This Is Hell 2006 Courtesy of Milliken Gallery, Stockholm

Jonathan Meese Fort Knox 2005-06 Courtesy of Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin

John Newsom The Great Divide 2005-06 Courtesy of Mike Weiss Gallery, New York

To see what’s hot in the current market, you could do worse than to drive down Main Street of the depressed town of Peekskill, N.Y., past boarded-up buildings and auto service centers to a nondescript concrete building, the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art.

Here, a brand new show, "XXL: Recent Large-scale Paintings," assembles the good, bad and ugly of in-demand artists from top galleries in New York, Los Angeles and Europe. The center is only open on weekend afternoons, has a most helpful desk attendant (thank you, Jessica!), and signs sternly prohibiting the taking of photographs and touching the art remind you that you are in a moderately dicey neighborhood.

The two best pieces, jarringly juxtaposed, greet you inside the door to the right, a giant Gustonesque rear view of female holes by naughty boy Carroll Dunham and a searing Maoish Red Self-Portrait by Yan Pei-Ming, courtesy of Zwirner Gallery.

These works are atypical of the show, which shows a group of hot artists trying to paint something like Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa in the Neo-Expressionistic style of the 1980s East Village scene. Francesco DiMattio’s Black Ship (courtesy Salon 94) and Ryan Pierce’s Lofoten (from Heller Gallery in Los Angeles) are literal shipwrecks, which leave nothing to the imagination, drawn detritus and afflatus filling every nook and cranny of large canvases. I would grow weary staring at this stuff in my den every day. Rothko, it ain’t!

Worse are three efforts adjoining each other by Bendix Harms, Jonathan Meese and Erich van Lieshout. The van Lieshout is two poorly painted heads that could have been done by Tim Greathouse, Skip Snow or any of a hundred other forgotten stars of the aforementioned East Village
scene. Galerie van Orsouw, Zurich, provided it. The Harms (from Anton Kern) is an ugly purple monster head. The Meese is a giant hodgepodge of photos, squiggles and diary entries which make Sean Landers seem mature by comparison. If you want to know what’s bad about an indiscriminate market for undiscriminating painting, Peekskill is the place.

The paintings which deviate from Big Mess in "XXL" are rewarding. There’s an excellent orange and green Neo Rauch, of people and robots, reminiscent of the ‘50s sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still. I don’t get Mark Bradford, who is just recycled Nicholas de Stael on a giant scale, but, for lovers of black, there’s an ooey gooey oil slick on the wall from Pierre Soulages, via Robert Miller Gallery. Toba Khedoori’s Holes is not her best, Poonsy grayish eggs, but instructive that, in this show, thought and restraint go a long way, as opposed to, say, hot artist Anton Henning’s mediocre green beach scene, whose fleshy indisinctiveness has been cribbed, stroke for stroke, from Eric Fischl. London’s Haunch of Venison shipped it over for your viewing displeasure. John Newsom has a rather generic red take on his overdone theme of wasps and butterflies, but it is Rembrandt compared to the
less-disciplined efforts in "XXL".

This most informative exhibition is up, weekends, through next spring, and Peekskill has a first-class farmer’s market nearby on Saturdays, 50 minutes from Manhattan by train or car, and well worth the trip.

"Size Matters: XXL - Recent Large-Scale Paintings," Sept. 16, 2007-Spring 2008, at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, 1701 Main Street, Peekskill, N.Y. 10566

Francis Bacon's Study from the Human Body Sells For $16.3 Million at Christie's London

Francis Bacon's Study from the Human Body Sells For $16.3 Million at Christie's London artlover5465886688

Francis Bacon’s rent cheque painting Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light which sold for £8,084,500 ($16,371,113 / €11,528,497). © Christie's Images Ltd. 2007.

LONDON.- Christie’s Post War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale including Double Vision held on 14 October 2007 totalled £39,810,200 ($80,615,655 /€56,769,345), the highest ever total for Christie’s October Post War & Contemporary Art sale in London and double the previous total for this sale of £19 million in 2006. Strategically timed during a week when the world’s focus is on international contemporary art in London, the sale was led by Francis Bacon’s rent cheque painting Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light which sold for £8,084,500 ($16,371,113 / €11,528,497). “The increasing interest in collecting art has been fuelled by an unprecedented breadth and depth of the international collecting community. We continue to see confidence in the international art market, notably the Post War & Contemporary Art segment, with strong prices achieved for top quality and sensibly estimated works. The results tonight are a testament to Christie’s unrivalled knowledge and expertise of this dynamic market,” said Pilar Ordovas, Head of Post War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s London. The sale was highlighted by Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light by Francis Bacon (1909-1992) which sold for £8,084,500 ($16,371,113 / €11,528,497), the fourth highest price for the artist at auction. The picture was offered by the Royal College of Art who were given the work directly by the artist as rent for the use of a studio in Cromwell Road in 1969 and who were selling the painting in order to raise funds for a major new campus. All proceeds of the sale will be invested directly into the construction of the new Royal College of Art buildings based in Battersea. Sir Christopher Frayling, Rector of the Royal College of Art said: "We are very happy with the result of today’s sale. I hate to use the phrase 'bringing home the bacon', but since the major phase of the new building development in Battersea, with all its promises, will be supported by this sale of Francis Bacon's painting, I've a feeling that's just what we're doing here. The RCA lent Bacon a studio in 1969. He gave us a painting as rent. That eight-month occupancy of a single studio will help us to build over a hundred studios for future generations of students." Other highlights of this evening’s sale included: - Double Vision: Important Contemporary Art and Design from a Private Collection, a single-owner collection which merged post-war and contemporary art with 20th century design, and which totalled £7,846,100 / $15,888,353 / €11,188,539. Forming the design centerpiece of the collection, Australian-born Marc Newson’s (b. 1963) futuristic Lockheed Lounge, 1986 sold for £748,500 ($1,515,713/€1,067,361) and set a new world auction record for any living designer. - Small Vase of Flowers, (1991) by Jeff Koons (b.1955), from the artist’s notorious Made in Heaven series, which sold for £1,588,500 ($3,216,713 / €2,265,201). - Donald Judd’s (1928-1994) Untitled, 1985, executed in aluminium and blue plexiglass, which realised £1,364,500 ($2,763,113 / €1,945,777). - Wayward Nurse by Richard Prince (b.1949) which sold for £1,028,500 ($2,082,713 / €1,466,641) against a pre-sale estimate of £400,000,600,000. - The section of Chinese Contemporary Art which offered ten paintings, all of which sold for a collective total of £5,245,500 ($10,622,138 / €7,480,083). The top price was Mask Series 1999, No. 5 by Zeng Fanzhi (b.1964) which realised £804,500 ($1,629,113 / €1,147,217). In today’s sale, 10 artists records were established including for Shiro Kuramata, Scott Burton, Marc Newson, Ron Arad, Jonathan Meese, Robert Longo, Olafur Eliasson, Anselm Reyle, Yin Zhaoyang and Carsten Höller.

Symbols of Power Brings to Life the Majesty of Napoleon and Josephine

Symbols of Power Brings to Life the Majesty of Napoleon and Josephine artlover24398865448788

Napoleon I on His Imperial Throne, 1806, (Napoleon Enthroned), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–67), Oil on canvas, 260 x 163 cm. Acquired during the August 1806 session of the Corps Législatif (now the Palais Bourbon); After the fall of the Empire, transferred to the Musée du Louvre (inc. 5420); loaned to the Hôtel des Invalides in 1832; transferred to the Musée historique de l’Armée (Musée de l’Armée from 1905) in 1897. Musée de l’Armée, Paris (inv. 4, Ea 89/1). Courtesy of the American Federation of Arts.

BOSTON, MA.- From his ornately carved gilded throne, Napoleon ruled much of early 19th -century Europe. One of his four surviving thrones, opulently upholstered in rich red velvet and accented with imperial emblems, is among the nearly 200 works of art—which include paintings, sculpture, costume, jewelry, silver, and furniture—to be featured in the upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style, 1800-1815. On view October 21, 2007, through January 27, 2008, in the MFA’s Gund Gallery, the exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts, New York, and Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Support for the exhibition is provided, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts. The television media sponsor is WCVB-TV 5. The national tour is made possible, in part, by the Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation, Inc., and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. It also is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The exhibition will bring the grandeur of Napoleon’s empire and the splendor of his palaces at Fontainebleau, Versailles, Compiègne, and Saint-Cloud to Boston. Many of the works shown are masterpieces of the period and have never before been seen outside of France. A highlight of the exhibition, the monumental coronation painting Napoleon I on the Imperial Throne by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1806, 8 ½’ x 5 ¼’, Musée de l’Armée, Paris), shows Napoleon enrobed in ermine and velvet, crowned like Caesar, and holding the scepter and hand of justice of Charlemagne. It underscores the larger-than-life presence of the formidable French leader and military genius who promoted a new artistic style that allied his regime with those of the Roman imperial past and with the reign of Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, who was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800. Objects made for Napoleon and his wife, Josephine, crowned emperor and empress in 1804, are a focal point of Symbols of Power. Their love affair is legendary, and made tangible by the inclusion in the exhibition of Empress Josephine’s Letter Box (1805-1810, Fondation Napoléon, Paris), a rootwood, ebony, and gilded bronze box that contained the many love letters sent to her by Napoleon. Also shown are the delicate gold-embroidered satin Slippers Worn by Empress Josephine at the Coronation (1804, Les Arts Décoratifs, Musée de la Mode et du Textile, Paris). As well, the emperor would have worn Napoleon’s Sword (1806, Musée National Château de Fontainebleau). Designed for use at official functions, it was made from gold, enamel, steel and tortoiseshell. Napoleon came to power during the turbulent political climate of the late 18th century. [A few years earlier, American revolutionaries had won independence from the British Crown (1775-1783)]. In France, angry mobs had stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, beginning a revolution and setting in motion 10 years of instability that peaked in the Reign of Terror (1793-94), during which King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, and thousands of aristocrats were executed. Society was turned upside down in the name of liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, brotherhood), and France declared war on neighboring monarchies. Out of this tableau rose Napoleon Bonaparte, an ambitious and resourceful general who achieved political power as the First Consul in the Consulate government (1799-1804), then crowned himself emperor (1804-1814). With this regime came a bold new artistic style that celebrated the military power and grandeur of imperial France. “As emperor, Napoleon allied himself with the great civilizations of the past, especially those of classical Rome and Greece and ancient Egypt, as a means of legitimizing his reign and creating an illusion of permanence, grandeur, and monumentality,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum of Fine Arts. “This exhibition represents a rare opportunity to see many spectacular objects made for Napoleon and Josephine, which reflect the new French style that evolved from the austerity of the Revolution to the splendor of imperial France.” Symbols of Power is the first comprehensive survey of the decorative arts of late 18th- and early 19th-century France and of the iconography pervasive in all the arts at the time. Many of the most important works of the Empire period will be displayed, representing virtually every visual medium: furniture, silver, porcelain, gilt bronzes, clocks, drawings, illustrated books, jewelry, costume, glass, sculpture, wallpapers, firearms, textiles and carpets, as well as paintings. A majority of these works reflect the influence of Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, the official architects and designers of the Empire, who defined a new visual language glorifying the military and political power of the emperor. The exhibition examines the artistic use of classical emblems of power—the Roman eagle, a symbol of imperial Rome and the god Jupiter; the laurel wreath, symbolizing victory; and Mars, Roman god of war—to underscore the military strength of France under Napoleon. Paintings such as Robert Jacques François Faust Lefèvre’s Portrait of Napoleon I in His Coronation Robes (1812, MFA, Boston) attest to the emperor’s dominant presence on the world stage. A steel and brass ceremonial breastplate, Napoleon’s Cuirass (ca. 1805, Musée Carnavalet, Paris), presented to the emperor by Parisian armorers in 1805, is decorated with an image of Mars intended to flatter him as a great military leader. Napoleon appropriated symbols of power not only from antiquity, but also from France’s distant past in order to legitimize his reign and to glorify the new French empire. Often seen in his portraits are the hand of justice and the scepter, both part of Charlemagne’s imperial regalia and re-used for Napoleon’s coronation on December 2, 1804. The scepter, the baton of command and sign of sovereign authority, is mounted with a statuette of Charlemagne, the ancestor of the new political regime. Another pervasive emblem is the bee (an ancient symbol of immortality), which connected him to Childeric I, founder of the Merovingian dynasty in France. A magnificent example of the use of the bee is the Savonnerie Carpet from the Throne Room of the Tuileries Palace (1807-1809, 25 ½’ x 21’, Musée National des Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau, Rueil-Malmaison), which depicts the emblems of the empire as well as the cipher “N.” Providing counterbalance to the masculine emblems favored by Napoleon is the feminine iconography seen in the decorative arts cherished by Josephine. The empress collected 10,000 rare and exotic trees, plants and flowers in the greenhouse and gardens at the château of Malmaison, the Bonapartes’ private residence near Paris. Botanical designs made from specimens in Josephine’s collection were used for the decoration of her porcelains, such as the two ice-cream coolers featured in Fourteen Pieces from the Service des Plantes de la Malmaison et les Liliacées (1802-1805, MFA, Boston), a dessert service with a different flower or plant decorating each piece that the Sèvres Manufactory created for her. The feminine iconography highlighted in the exhibition, including swans, butterflies, dance, the female nude, and flowers, served as metaphors for love and seduction. The Gondola Chair from Josephine Bonaparte’s Boudoir in Saint-Cloud (ca. 1802-1803, Musée National des Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau, Rueil-Malmaison) is a striking example of one of Josephine’s favorite emblems—the swan—which serves as armrests on this elegant chair. Symbols of Power offers a unique opportunity for museum-goers to see masterworks of the Napoleonic period brought together from a large number of museums and private collections. Approximately 80 percent of the works featured have been lent by French museums: the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Par

Tribute Exhibition for Princess Grace of Monaco Opens

Tribute Exhibition for Princess Grace of Monaco Opens artlover7898898688498

Princess Grace overlooking the harbor in Monaco. © Archives of the Princely Palace of Monaco.

NEW YORK, NY.- From October 15 through 26, 2007, the Consulate General of Monaco and the Monaco Government Tourist Office in New York with Sotheby’s, in close collaboration with the Princely Palace and the Princess Grace Foundation-USA, will present a tribute exhibition celebrating the life and legacy of Princess Grace of Monaco. The exhibition, which will be free and open to the public at Sotheby’s in New York, will feature dresses, jewelry, photographs, letters, video and other unique items, most of which have never been seen outside of Monaco. These items span the extraordinary life of Grace Kelly, from Hollywood star and style icon to Princess of Monaco as a wife, mother and humanitarian. The exhibition will set the stage for a series of glamorous events at Sotheby’s including the 25th Anniversary Princess Grace Awards Gala and an evening of high stakes and high fashion co-hosted by Wynn Resorts to benefit the arts. Her life and style will also be celebrated throughout October in New York City with dedicated window displays featuring one-of-a-kind Grace Kelly-inspired creations by renowned American designers at Saks Fifth Avenue, and a limited edition lipstick shade specially created by Estée Lauder. “Sotheby’s is honored to host Grace, Princess of Monaco: A Tribute to the Life and Legacy of Grace Kelly in New York this October,” said James G. Niven, Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s and son of legendary actor David Niven. “Grace Kelly was a great friend of my father’s from her days as an actress in Hollywood to her reign as Princess of Monaco. She took me under her wing when we lived in France, and I was lucky to be invited to Palace events as a young man and experience the world she inhabited first-hand. The pieces selected for this exhibition highlight her great beauty and style for which she is so well-known, and her personal letters and correspondence show that she was open, friendly, interesting and had a great sense of humor.” “We invite visitors to the exhibition and related tribute events in New York to share some of the irresistible allure and compassion for others that Princess Grace brought to the Principality and that remains today as a valuable part of her legacy,” commented Hon. Maguy Maccario Doyle, Consul General of Monaco in New York. “This year’s Gala is truly special,” continued Hon. John F. Lehman, Princess Grace Foundation-USA Chairman. “The past 25 years of supporting emerging artists has made an indelible mark on the performing arts in this country. It is most fitting that this celebration of Princess Grace’s legacy will culminate in this extraordinary night at Sotheby’s when we present the 2007 Princess Grace Awards recipients.” Grace, Princess of Monaco: A Tribute to the Life and Legacy of Grace Kelly will open to the public at Sotheby’s New York on October 15, 2007 (ends October 26) and will include numerous items that are being featured in an unprecedented retrospective in the Principality of Monaco this summer. Entitled The Grace Kelly Years this exhibition at the Grimaldi Forum Monaco opened on July 12 and ends on September 23. HSH Prince Albert II said of The Grace Kelly Years, “It revives happy memories we shared with our mother, and I hope that, through this exhibit, visitors will discover the many aspects that helped make her personality so richly diverse.” Grace Kelly is a name synonymous with style, and the New York exhibition at Sotheby’s will include many of the iconic elements associated with her life. A selection of gowns, outfits, jewelry and accessories portraying her signature style and marking important events in her life will be on view. Among them will be the blue satin column dress and cloak by legendary Hollywood costume designer Edith Head which she wore to the March 1955 Academy Awards – the night she accepted the OSCAR© for best actress for her role in The Country Girl. The OSCAR© statuette will be on view alongside the gown, as will her famous Life magazine cover. In May that same year, while attending the Cannes Film Festival for a screening of The Country Girl, her first meeting with Prince Rainier III of Monaco at the Princely Palace was arranged. The taffeta dress with floral motif she wore for the occasion, an American creation, will be on view along with photographs of them strolling through the Palace grounds. On January 5, 1956, Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly announced their engagement in Philadelphia. Grace wore a shirtwaist dress by Branell, New York, which will be displayed. The beige silk dress was subsequently touted as “To Catch A Prince” after photos were published of Grace wearing it. Accompanying this dress will be her stunning engagement ring, a 10.47 carat Emerald Cut Diamond set with two baguette diamonds and mounted in platinum. The ring can be seen in High Society which was filmed the same year. On April 18, 1956, Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier wed in a small civil ceremony in front of 80 guests. She wore a beautiful lace suit by Helen Rose with a fitted bodice, rounded collar and flared skirt. The following day hundreds of VIPs including heads of state and government, royalty, Hollywood stars, friends and family attended the “Wedding of the Century” at Monaco’s Cathedral amid a media frenzy. Her wedding dress, also created by Helen Rose, was a gift from the MGM studios. Her unique style continued to captivate the public throughout her marriage to Prince Rainier. In 1958 the young Princess of Monaco appeared in the pages of Life concealing her pregnancy with a rectangular crocodile Hermès bag – thereafter known as the Kelly Bag – and the exhibition will include a brown leather version of this iconic bag. A tiara belonging to Princess Grace, which was worn by Princess Caroline on the April 1986 cover of Life magazine, will also be on exhibition. Also to be featured are photographs that trace Grace Kelly’s life through her childhood, her years in Hollywood and life in the Principality. Many of these images from the Princely family and Palace archives give a private view of her life and have never before been seen in the United States. Highlights include a photograph of Princess Grace and Alfred Hitchcock in a crowd at a film screening in Cannes in 1972 and many images with her family, including a touching photograph of Princess Grace with nine-year-old Crown Prince Albert from March 1967. A selection of Hollywood movie excerpts and archived news clips – including footage of her OSCAR© acceptance speech plus a selection of home movies, made available by Prince Albert for the first time in the United States, will transport visitors to another facet of her private life. Also on display will be personal letters from family, her Hollywood friends (such as Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra) and official correspondence and documents including an invitation to her wedding, programs from important state occasions and gala events, handwritten speeches and scripts. Sketches and paintings of her (for example the Andy Warhol painting) and by her (pressed flower collages), stamps and coins featuring her visage and profile will also be on view.

ALL THIS USELESS BOOTY

ALL THIS USELESS BOOTY artlover2899878658

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as Post Script 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as Not Dead Yet 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as Spill 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait with Men in Hats 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as What Holds Up 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as Raising Cain 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as Booty 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as Booty (detail) 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as Spill (detail) 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait with Men in Hats (detail) 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as Booty (detail) 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait as What Holds Up (detail) 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan Self Portrait with Men in Hats (detail) 2007 P.P.O.W

Julie Heffernan, "Booty," Sept. 20-Oct. 20, 2007, at P.P.O.W., 555 West 25th Street, New York, N.Y. 10001

Julie Heffernan’s exhibition of 10 new paintings at P.P.O.W gallery in Chelsea has, on the surface, all the signatures of continuing triumph. In numerous previous shows at this gallery and elsewhere, the Yale-trained painter (b. 1956) has developed her own brand of the postmodern baroque mined by John Currin, Kehinde Wiley and Lisa Yuskavage. She continues to refine and integrate her storehouse of effects -- and her new paintings at P.P.O.W are already sold out, the large canvasses going for more than $60,000 a pop.

The show is titled "Booty," all double meanings intended. Heffernan’s paintings consistently focus on the same thing: a full-length female nude at the center -- always the same pale, red-haired figure, a self-portrait of Heffernan herself -- draped by elaborate costumes formed of piles of fruit, flowers, birds and other refugees from classical still-lifes.

In Self Portrait as Post Script (2007), for instance, the woman stands, bare-breasted, in an ensemble that resembles the immense hooped skirts of Velazquez’s royal courts. It is composed of a variety of peacock feathers, flowers, fowl, dead deer and squid, each grouped together to stand in for the different layers of the skirts. The woman’s hair is formed of an off-center array of blooming roses, a few garlands snaking chaotically out of the picture.

In Self Portrait as Spill, the figure is much the same, only the mound that forms her skirt now consists of fruit as well as deer and fowl, and her hair is a spiraling tower of fruit that ascends to the top edge of the canvas. In Self Portrait with Men in Hats, the woman’s hair is spun into a web of geometric golden braids, while the skirts are of roses, peacock feathers and rabbits.

Heffernan’s paintings are often referred to as "allegorical," because their wealth of cryptic details seems to gesture towards some kind of buried narrative. Self Portrait as What Holds Up -- the lone painting here to offer a variation on Heffernan’s central image -- presents the painter as a little girl, in a tangled forest, holding up a giant sphere formed of flowers, vines and medallions with cryptic devices on them, suggesting something about the burden of art history on growth in the present.

Self Portrait as Raising Cain adds a number of elements to Heffernan’s figure-draped-in-things motif (the things this time are game, flowing silk and pearl necklaces): she holds the legs of a rabbit at waist level, phallus-like; the background is formed of a looming, ghost-like image of a regal woman in pearls; and the surface of the image is flecked with tiny dots of color that, on inspection, are disembodied, spectral body parts -- rotting teeth, skeleton fingers, etc. A statement about the vanity (the pearls) of repeating art past (the large portrait) out of context (the floating body parts)?

In the show’s two most complex compositions, the backgrounds seem to contain whole alternate universes. The figure in Men in Hats is set against a hazy image of larger-than-life male figures battling on horseback, along with a series of spinning, floating medallions, each one featuring the face of a historical ruler or a contemporary conservative political figure in a goofy hat (George W. Bush wears a flamboyant crown; Condolezza Rice sports a showgirl-style headdress). Meanwhile, in Self Portrait as Booty, the green background is broken by pools of imagery, showing tiny, pastoral scenes symbolizing the triumph of unreason -- a group of male hunters shooting each other in a circle, a dog barking at a giant wave, anthropomorphic animals in suits playing croquet, and so on.

It is a feat, indeed, to marshal all this together, into calmly surreal, concentrated images. Heffernan’s work has triumphant painterly passages, channeling Dürer in the female anatomy and Chardin in the heaps of dead bunnies, while the fashion design is by way of Arcimboldo, and the landscaping by Dalí. And yet there is a core of melancholy that runs below all the watch-me-paint bravado.

To be sure, on the surface, it is very difficult to locate any sort of feeling at all. Heffernan’s paintings are, in fact, distinguished by their emotionally evacuated character, incarnate in the genteel expression on the face of her central figure, which confronts the viewer with classical neutrality every time. A narcotic sense suffuses Heffernan’s fantasy scenes, with their heaped up, painterly baggage; they breathe the inertia of overload.

Heffernan herself gives us the key to her paintings by titling them "Self Portrait," over and over, reiterating her own image in each scene as if waving a signal flag. The works are about the narcissism of painting and painterliness. Thus, the objects glutting the canvas are conjured with evident skill -- but the pride in the work is undercut by the frivolity and incoherence of the whole. Heffernan’s objects repeat in ensembles, one painterly deer carcass piling atop the next, reiterating the ability to paint, as if to mock the "embarrassment of riches" of an artistic skill that is formidable, but finds its subject mainly in replaying past styles.

The pleasure of pastiche is the pleasure of recognizing that one is smart enough to recognize something as pastiche, narcissistically. Heffernan scrambles this enjoyment by exaggerating it, strobing freely from one reference to the next, multiplying them ostentatiously into a chaotic thicket that never resolves into any specific quotation you can easily identify. The knowledge of painting past Heffernan displays is deliberately hypertrophied, overgrown, distorted.

It is baffling to hear traditionalist critics like David Cohen praise Heffernan’s pomo wall candy, saying that her "use of old painterly languages is less tongue-in-cheek than hand-on-heart -- a means of accessing a dreamlike space of high imagination." The paintings at P.P.O.W are clearly not about taking off into fantasy-land but about being weighed down by and mired in stuff -- old painterly languages included; in painting after painting, the artist depicts herself as stuck in the same place, mired in her own phantasmagoric environments. In the background details of Booty, Men in Hats, Raising Cain and What Holds Up, one finds buried the words "Help," "Oh No," and "S.O.S.," repeatedly -- cartoon exclamations of being trapped.

In his New York Sun review of this show, Cohen distinguishes Heffernan from fellow oil-on-canvas bricoleurs like John Currin by saying that her quotations are "not supporting effects to an a priori imagery, but are rather integral to the value and meaning of her work." Then he is unable to say what this meaning might actually be, besides having a command of technique and doing pretty things with history. But the virtue of Heffernan’s painting is precisely that it deconstructs this kind of cartoonish investment in technique.

One point of reference for Heffernan is John Currin, it is true, an artist whose painterly "skill" has become a critical cliché. But the other obvious reference for Heffernan’s art-historical self-portraiture is Cindy Sherman. Before she became inescapable as an influence, Sherman was initially denounced by her peers precisely for her lack of "skill" (for this reason it was the department of sculpture at MoMA that first acquired her work, not the department of photography). The exaggerated respect for abstract artistic technique that Currin consecrated in the ‘90s was the dialectical underside of this deskilling, and was inflected with a corresponding exaggerated edge even as it shared the same language of quotation. Heffernan’s mock self-aggrandizement reflects a keen awareness of this.

And here, finally, is where the melancholy comes in, the authentic heartbeat beneath the hollowed out triumphs of Heffernan’s large canvasses. Some have suggested that the kinship between Heffernan and Sherman makes Heffernan’s practice "feminist." Sadly, the issues faced by women today have little to do with being compared to Baroque paintings. And in fact, Heffernan is explicitly absorbed with depicting a consciousness locked up in a web of art references and virtuoso technique that touches on nothing real, addresses itself to only shadow referents, and is thus unable to engage with its own moment. George W. Bush appears, but only as a caricature in the crowd of historical noise.

Insomuch as they render something topical, Heffernan’s anti-history paintings depict contemporary art circling in its own mental cage, at a loss to grapple with the present in a vital way. And insofar as they are fully "allegorical," they are illustrations of the old phrase, "those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it," only altered: "those who do not engage with the present are doomed to repeat the past."