NEW YORK, NY.- Phillips de Pury & Company announced highlights from its Contemporary Art Under the Influence auction taking place on 20 September 2012 at 450 Park Avenue.

Under the Influence, the season’s first auction, serves as both a forecast of trends in collecting contemporary art and as a platform for bringing new works from both emerging and established artists to market.

“This auction bears testimony to the strength of the present market and speaks to the unique competency of Phillips de Pury in bringing the ‘next and best’ to the auction block.” – Corey A. Barr, Specialist and Head of Sale.


KELLEY WALKER Untitled, 2007 estimated at $150,000-200,000. In coating the recycling sign—one of the artists’ most recognizable themes—in gold, Walker continues to challenge his audience with tactical games where both form and concept are concerned. This work evokes the pretense that often surrounds the notion of recycling while also taking aim at the excesses of the art world. The juxtaposition of gold leaf with the recycling sign that Walker stripped from a cereal box and enlarged epitomizes the artist’s mischievous approach to his craft.

PIOTR UKLANSKI Untitled (NIAMH), 2008 estimated at $80,000-120,000. Untitled (NIAMH) demonstrates the artist’s aptitude for attaining an increasingly rare balance of high concept and aesthetic triumph through textured abstraction. Uklanski has achieved success using an enormous variety of media including sculpture, photography and feature-length film. This work coincides with Uklanski’s ideology of undermining the esoteric nature of high art. By using pencil shavings as the primary medium, he is playing on the notion that art is not a finite but rather an intermediary discipline.

JACOB KASSAY Untitled, 2010 estimated at $80,000-120,000. Jacob Kassay’s meteoric rise to art world-stardom has been triggered largely by his silver paintings, a body of works introduced at his first solo exhibition at Eleven Rivington in 2009. This particular piece from the series is idyllic in its uninterrupted silver surface area and its fully realized border that results in a stunning, mirror-like illusion.

ELLIOT HUNDLEY Landslide, 2003 estimated at $80,000-120,000. Often compared to Rauschenberg in his elaborate mode of construction and Twombly for his use of mythological allegory, Elliott Hundley has emerged with as one of today’s most exciting young artists. Landslide, 2003 showcases the artist’s hybridization of sculptural and painterly forms. The vast, vesuvian landscape—painted and composed of hundreds of collaged elements—appropriates historical narratives as commentary on contemporary culture.

NATE LOWMAN Black Maxima Negative, 2005 estimated at $50,000-70,000. The artist’s early works have been described as an attack on linguistics. Lowman prizes striking but minimal imagery over decadence. Black Maxima Negative is an iconic piece that marks the beginning of a philosophy that has spanned Lowman’s career to date.

KAWS M8, 2000 estimated at $30,000 – 40,000. New York based artist KAWS continues the legacy of artists who have subscribed to the high-art, mass-culture binary. The artist recently mounted a solo exhibition, OriginalFake, at the Bape Gallery in Tokyo, and was featured in the travelling show Beautiful Losers, throughout the United States and Europe. KAWS’ M8 reemphasizes the artist’s commitment to high art and design, with a bold representation of his iconic figuration.

WALEAD BESHTY SSCC 139751 REV 10/05 "FedEx Large Box", Priority Overnight (Los Angeles-Berlin trk#857875945480, Berlin-Los Angeles trk#860752212570), estimated at $30,000-40,000. Rooted in equal parts process and product, Beshty creates work that is at once individual in statement and universal in its symbolism. The artist has expressed fascination with FedEx and its ability to deliver objects around the world. Beshty constructs glass vitrines that are the exact dimensions of a FedEx box into which this glass is ultimately placed for shipment around the world. The physical changes witnessed in the glass signify its experience with space and time.

YAYOI KUSUMA Sunshine, 1988 estimated at $25,000-35,000. The summer of 2012 marks an incredible resurgence of celebrated Japanese artist Yayoi Kusuma in popular culture. In addition to her career retrospective at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, Kusama has partnered with Louis Vuitton for a series of artistic and retail collaborations. Sunshine, 1988 represents Kusama’s trademark palette of recurring patterns and super-saturated color.

SEAN LANDERS This painting is..., 2004 estimated at $20,000 - $30,000. In signature form, Sean Lander’s This painting is..., 2004 presents a frankly personal and slightly cryptic look into his own creative process. With mixed media and a multiplicity of forms and text, Landers simultaneously rejects the notion of artistic ambiguity while also completely embracing it.

ADAM MCEWEN Untitled (Marilyn), 2004 estimated at $12,000-18,000. Adam McEwen wrote obituaries for London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper prior fully immersing himself in his art. Untitled (Marilyn), 2004 is one such example of these ingenious works which bring issues like death, sensationalism and press consumption to bare with a single artistic construction, a fictionalized obituary of former porn star Marilyn Minter.

ELAD LASSRY Woman, Man (Rose, Navy), 2011 estimated at $6,000-8,000. Lassry’s work confronts the intensity of looking. Woman, Man (Rose, Navy), 2011 features two subjects bathed in color with a navy grid superimposed above the works. The grid acts as both conceptual nuance and a literal frame of reference. With his use of color Lassry makes reference to Freud and our capacity to dream, and aims to signify a world that is both alien and familiar.

Additional highlights include: Will Cotton, Taffy Forest, 2007, $40,000-60,000; Banksy, You Can't Fool All of the People..., 2005, $25,000-35,000; Seth Price, Untitled, 2004, estimated at $20,000-30,000; Sterling Ruby, Sex, 2007 estimated at $20,000-30,000; Ryan McGinness, A Dream within a Dream (What Am I, A Mind Reader?) (Blue), 2007, estimated at $25,000-35,000; and Ryan Sullivan, March 16, 2008-May 29, 2008, 2008, estimated at $10,000-15,000.