Beschreibung:

19 Andy Warhol Knives 1982 silkscreen ink and synthetic polymer on canvas 70 7/8 x 52 in. (180 x 132.1 cm) Signed and dated “Andy Warhol 82” along the overlap.
Provenance Galeria Fernando Vijande, Madrid Private collection, Europe Exhibited Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Andy Warhol August 27 – October 27, 1992 Vienna, Kunst Haus Wien, Andy Warhol February 22 – May 30, 1993 Athens, National Gallery, Andy Warhol June 14 – August 10, 1993. This exhibition later traveled to Thessaloniki, August 27 – September 27, 1993 Orlando, Orlando Museum of Art, Andy Warhol October 9 – December 12, 1993 Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Museum of Art, Andy Warhol January 13 – March 13, 1994 Taipei, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Andy Warhol 1928-1987, October 8 – November 20, 1994 Lausanne, Fondation de l’Hermitage, Andy Warhol May 25 – October 1, 1995 Milan, Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta, Andy Warhol October 22, 1995 – February 11, 1996 Ludwigshafen, Germany, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Andy Warhol September 15, 1996 – January 12, 1997 Helsinki, Helsinki Kunsthalle, Andy Warhol August 23 – November 16, 1997 Warsaw, The National Museum in Warsaw, Andy Warhol March 6 – May 3, 1998. This exhibition later traveled to The National Museum in Cracow, May 19 – July 12, 1998 Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Warhol, October 12 – December 12, 1999 Kochi, The Museum of Art, Andy Warhol February 6 – March 26, 2000. This exhibition later traveled to The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, April 1 – May 21, 2000; Daimaru Museum, Umeda-Osaka, May 24 – June 11, 2000; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, June 17 – July 30, 2000; Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, August 5 – October 1, 2000; Nagoya City Art Museum, October 7 – December 17, 2000; Niigata City Art Museum, January 4 – February 12, 2001 Grimaldi Forum Monaco, SuperWarhol, July 16 – August 31, 2003 London, Yvon Lambert, The Temptation to Exist Douglas Gordon On Kawara Terence Koh Andy Warhol November 22 – December 20, 2008 Literature K. McShine, ed., “Andy Warhol: A Retrospective”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1989, p. 27, fig. 5 G. Celant, ed., SuperWarhol, New York, 2003, p. 435, pl. 207 (illustrated) “Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Work of Andy Warhol”, Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2006, p. 155 (illustrated) J. D. Ketner II, Andy Warhol The Last Decade, Wisconsin, 2009, fig. 17, p. 27 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Andy Warhol’s iconic use of silkscreens during the quarter century between 1962 and 1987 reached an intriguing fever pitch during the beginning of the 1980s. Knives, 1982, is a convergence of several contemporaneous trends in his work: beginning in 1979, Warhol painted his Retrospective series, which employed negative images of his own artistic iconography. The title of the series alluded to Warhol’s own engagement with his past body of work; a reflection and meditation on his own achievements. Warhol also began in the 1970s to utilize symbols of political significance with greater frequency: from the hammer and sickle to Mao Zedong, Warhol zeroed in on iconography that was legible from a global viewpoint. Warhol, as well, began to return to a common motif in his oeurve in the depiction of violence and violent imagery. His keen sense of observation made him an astute identifier of both obvious and subtle morbidity in everyday life, and, as he conflated so many tenets of his work, he furthered the resonance of Pop Art in its later years. The present lot was first exhibited publicly in Warhol’s 1982 show at Castelli- Goodman-Soloman gallery in East Hampton, New York. The exhibition displayed an unsettling and profound contrast between its lavish venue and Warhol’s rather macabre and cynical subjects. As he had recently presented his Retrospective series, which conjured a sense of serenity in their selfreferential and reflective nature, the show came as somewhat of a shock to his audience: Warhol silkscreened three prominent images—knives, guns, and dollar signs. In a sense, Warhol was providing a prescient commentary on the impending economic disparity, decadence and rising crime rates of the 1980s; astutely identifying the more sinister the