Sale: 393 / Post War/Contemporary Art, June 09. 2012 in Munich Lot 266

 
Eberhard Havekost - Zelte 1


266
Eberhard Havekost
Zelte 1, 1997.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 61,000 / $ 65,880

(incl. surcharge)
Zelte 1. 1997.
Oil on canvas.
Signed, dated "DD 97" and titled on verso. 160 x 130 cm (62,9 x 51,1 in).
The work "Zelte II" (1998), which was made in almost the same format, was sold by Christie`s in London in 2006. Up until today it counts among the artist's most expensive works on the international auction market.

PROVENANCE: Anton Kern Gallery, New York (with label on stretcher).
Private collection (since 2002).

Following a mason’s apprenticeship, Eberhard Havekost had the wish to study painting. His application at the Aschool for Arts in Düsseldorf was rejected and he decided to study in his hometown Dresden at the School for Fine Arts as of 1991. In 1997 he was in the master class of Ralf Kerbach. The media-shy artist was soon mentioned in the same breath with Daniel Richer, Jonathan Meese and Neo Rauch, today he counts among the most renowned German contemporary artists. In most cases Havekost approaches the painting process through newspaper photographs, videos or his own photos that he arranges in a digital archive according to certain criteria. His completed canvasses are convincing through their cool and objective materiality which always has an air of something enigmatic. The characteristic effect of Havekost’s works is usually generated by his unusual selection of the detail, an enlargement or a decontextualization, but also an alteration of color or technique. The result is a work that allows the observer to discover a new level of reality.

Havekost‘s internationally acknowledged paintings allow a lot of room for interpretation, they inspire thinking and make the brain compare stored receptions of form an colors. With "Zelte I" the Dresden artist realized a fragmentary monumentalization of common sense world, an artistic alteration with an enigmatic radiation. The strictly linear arrangement of lucent, almost monochrome color fields and the reduction to the primary colors yellow, blue and red stimulate an abstract reception of what is depicted. It is only through the shaded parts that suggest spatiality and the different positions of the blinds that the eye of the observer perceives the actual subject. A final clarification, however, is not achieved with help of the title either. Havekost lets our perception oscillate between abstraction and figuration and this way allows a peek into a world of mysterious imagery, which defies our conventional means of perception and confronts us with a strange and distanced reality.

In 2010 the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt dedicated a solo show to Eberhard Haverkost, which documented a new period in his creation. In his later works he gets much closer to the subject, radicalizes his painting and makes the structures of, for instance, gnarled bark or the crinkles of a sofa appear as abstract landscapes. Havekost‘s paintings are in possession of numerous international collection, e.g. in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Zurich, Wolfsburg and Lucerne. [JS].




266
Eberhard Havekost
Zelte 1, 1997.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 61,000 / $ 65,880

(incl. surcharge)