SYLVIE FLEURY Be Amazing

Phillips is pleased to announce highlights from the upcoming auction of New Now, providing an exciting start to our fall sale season. On September 20, collectors will have the opportunity to acquire works from both emerging artists, as well as contemporary masters. Comprised of over 200 lots, the sale will feature diverse and exciting works, including a single-owner selection from the estate of esteemed economist and celebrated art collector Pentti Kouri. 

Rebekah Bowling, Phillips’ Head of Sale, New Now, said, “We are so pleased to have the opportunity to present works from Mr. Kouri’s collection. While often recognized for his successes in the field of business, he also made a significant contribution to the art world through his patronage and support. Until his passing, he served as a board member of major cultural institutions, including the Guggenheim Museum’s President’s Council and DIA Art Foundation’s board. Mr. Kouri’s aesthetic vision and prescient taste led him to collect some of the most influential artists of our generation. Lawrence Weiner’s language-based installation ASSUMING THE POSITION from 1989  and Giuseppe Penone’s monumental sculpture Fingernail and Marble (Unghia e marmo) from 1988  both hail from his personal collection and are among the cornerstone pieces of the sale.” 

The New Now auction will also be highlighted by Matt Connors’ Untitled from 2015. Nearly five feet in height, this impressive painting is the first major work from the Chicago-born artist to come to auction. Drawing upon the history of painting, Connors’ works are rooted in the modernist canon, but occupy a uniquely contemporary territory in their method and concept. His wide-reaching practice also expands to installation-based works and artists’ books. His works are held in major institutional collections including the Dallas Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis.

Opening the sale as the first lot is a work by Josh Kline entitled it’s clean, it’s natural, we promise, which was included in the artist’s first solo show at his representative gallery, 47 Canal, in 2011. Making his auction debut this fall, Kline also has a concurrent solo show, “Josh Kline: Freedom,” at the Portland Art Museum, on view through November 13, 2016, and a forthcoming show at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, opening the same month. Widely recognized as one of the most influential artists of his generation, Kline focuses on the ways technological innovations affect politics, labor, and the human body, as exhibited in the present lot made of 24 Duane Reade branded three-liter bottles, boiled in their own water. Kline garnered attention last year with his installation included in the New Museum’s Triennial “Surround Audience,” featuring heavily-armed, officer-like mannequins with Teletubby faces, which became the exhibition’s defining work. 

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF PENTTI KOURI. SYLVIE FLEURY, Be Amazing. Electric lights, wood, paint and metal frame. 30 1/2 x 196 x 2 1/2 in. (77.5 x 497.8 x 6.4 cm.). Executed in 1999. Estimate $20,000 - 30,000