Beschreibung:

Andy Warhol Follow Knives signed and dated 'Andy Warhol '82' on the overlap silkscreen ink and synthetic polymer on canvas 180 x 132.1 cm (70 7/8 x 52 in.) Executed in 1982.
Provenance Galería Fernando Vijande, Madrid Private Collection, Europe Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, 7 November 2011, lot 19 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Andy Warhol , 27 August - 27 October 1992 Kunst Haus Wien; Orlando Museum of Art; Fort Lauderdale, Museum of Art, Andy Warhol 1928 - 1987 , 23 February 1993 - 13 March 1994 Athens, National Gallery; Thessaloniki, National Gallery, Andy Warhol , 14 June - 27 September 1993 Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Andy Warhol 1928 - 1987 , 8 October - 20 November 1994 Lausanne, Fondation de l’Hermitage, Andy Warhol Retrospektive , 25 May - 1 October 1995 Milan, Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta, Andy Warhol , 22 October 1995 - 11 February 1996 Ludwigshafen, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Andy Warhol , 15 September 1996 - 12 January 1997 Helsinki Kunsthalle, Andy Warhol , 23 August - 16 November 1997 Warsaw, The National Museum; Krakow, The National Museum, Andy Warhol , 6 March - 12 July 1998 Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Warhol , 12 October - 12 December 1999 Kochi, The Museum of Art; Tokyo, The Bunkamura Museum of Art; Osaka, Daimaru Museum Umeda; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Sakura, Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art; Nagoya City Art Museum; Niigata City Art Museum, Andy Warhol , 6 February 2000 - 12 February 2001 Grimaldi Forum Monaco, SuperWarhol , 16 July - 31 August 2003, pl. 207, p. 435 (illustrated) London, Yvon Lambert, The Temptation to Exist: Douglas Gordon On Kawara Terence Koh Andy Warhol , 22 November - 20 December 2008 Literature Andy Warhol A Retrospective , exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1989, fig. 5, p. 27 (illustrated) Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Work of Andy Warhol , exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2006, p. 155 (illustrated) Andy Warhol The Last Decade , exh.cat., Milwaukee Art Museum; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Brooklyn Museum; Baltimore Museum of Art, 2009, fig. 17, p. 27 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Monumental in scale and pulsating in repeated bands of red and black, Knives , a dramatic and poignant composition by Andy Warhol the master of American Pop Art, presents the viewer with an eminently recognizable symbol: the commonplace kitchen knife. Astutely identifying the more sinister themes in the American consciousness, for Warhol the kitchen knife came to symbolise the underbelly of popular culture. Serving as a memento mori, in the present work, through stark and shocking imagery, Warhol highlights the disparity between symbolic connotations and artistic aesthetics. By using the silkscreen as a means to mechanically repeat the lurid image of the knife across the broad swathe of canvas, Warhol not only delves into the domain of mortality but also seamlessly intensifies the painting’s menacing undertone into a compelling aesthetic experience. Following the attempt on his life by the feminist writer Valarie Solanas in 1968, Warhol became concerned with the depiction of violence, confronting the morbidity of everyday life. First exhibited publicly in 1982 Warhol’s show at Castelli- Goodman-Solomon Gallery in New York, Knives created an unsettling and profound contrast between the extravagant venue and the morbid and cynical subject matter of the sombre works being exhibited. Shocking viewers through graphic and bold images invoking violence, Warhol presented three prominent symbols in the exhibited works – knives, guns and dollar signs. With this unholy trinity of images taken from an unremarkable, everyday object, Warhol produced a brutal and unsettling portrayal of American consumerist culture. Warhol, who for decades had attempted to replicate the blunt and bloody truths of America’s society, was riveted with the terrors of American crime. Fascinated with the notion of celebrity, the artist is famed for his depictions of glamorous icons of Pop Culture; in Knives and other works concerned with death and disaster the artist unveils how his preoccupation with co