the press release

April 29th 2015, 6pm
Limited Editions
Modern Art, Contemporary Art and Design
Curator Mathieu Mercier
viewing
April 25th, 2015 - 11am - 7pm
April 27th, 2015 - 10am - 7pm
April 28th, 2015 - 10am - 7pm
April 29th, 2015 - 10am - 2pm
PIASA
118 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré
75008 Paris - France
PRESS & COMMUNICATION
Cécile Demtchenko Woringer
T +33 1 53 34 12 95 - M +33 6 22 16 85 96
[email protected]
Press release
On 29 April 2015 PIASA will be staging their first sale devoted to limited
editions in collaboration with the artist, curator and collector Mathieu
Mercier.
Over 200 modern and contemporary works, along with objects, artists’ jewellery
and designer furniture, will be featured, and showcased in an innovative exhibition
and scenography concept. The sale is conceived as a reflection on the process of
reproduction and the status of edited works, on their importance, the role of the
objects, and on how they can best be exhibited.
‘The auction concept involves creating two exhibitions with edited works, whose
iconic status or plastic quality have lead to their being considered masterpieces’
explains Mathieu Mercier. They are either historic works from the collections
of leading international museums, or works evoking a certain spirit and whose
artistic qualities exceed their commercial value.
The exhibition will be in two parts: one museum-style, in both its scenography and
choice of emblematic works by Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Andy Warhol; the
other in a more intimate spirit, with silkscreens, multiples, furniture and artists’
objects from the imaginary collection of a connoisseur displayed in a reconstituted
interior.
Editions offer artists of the 20th and 21st centuries the chance to ask questions
about the strategy of diffusion. The practices developed may be utopic or political,
and help demanding works be seen by as many people as possible.
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One of the most important items in the museum section is Marcel Duchamp’s Prière
de Toucher (Please Do Touch !). The book was published in 1947 in a print-run of 999
to mark the Surrealism exhibition organized by Duchamp and André Breton at the
Galerie Maeght. It reveals the provocative and humorous sides of Duchamp’s work. A
fake breast is stuck on the cover, while Prière de Toucher is written on the back. The
catalogue cocks a snook at museum institutions where it is forbidden to touch works;
to Duchamp it is the viewer, and what he or she does, that ‘make’ the work. Prière de
Toucher is an invitation to surpass the sense of sight, offering a tactile experience in line
with much Surrealist research about escaping from academic practice. On top of that,
Prière de Toucher offers a glimpse of the erotic side to Duchamp’s work. Few copies have
survived; each cover was an original work by Duchamp. The present catalogue has an
estimate of €25,000-35,000.
Another highlight of the sale, and of editions in general, is an hypnotic portrait of
Mildred Scheel, wife of West German President Walter Scheel. In 1980 Andy Warhol, a
longstanding friend of Frau Scheel’s, painted her portrait at her request to raise money for
cancer research, a cause she had supported for many years. The coloured silkscreen, with
diamond dust on filigrained paper, belongs to the most representative corpus of works
by the apostle of reproduction. Like his forerunner Marcel Duchamp, Warhol elevated
the process of reproduction to the status of a work of art. Duplication makes a work even
more emblematic. Warhol unleashed a revolution in art by his aim to render mass-made
products ‘artistic’ and declaring that he wanted to be ‘a machine’ in the service of art and
its creation. The portrait of Mildred Scheel has an estzimate of €3,000-5,000.
There will also be a giant Swiss Made watch by Thomas Hirschorn from an edition of
50 (est. €5,000-7,000); a Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons (est. €8,000-10,000) ; an aquatint by
Robert Ryman (est. €2,500-4,500) ; and works by Damien Hirst, James Turrell, Jonathan
Monk, Ed Rusha, Camille Henrot and Tatiana Trouvé.
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Mathieu Mercier
From the beginning of his career, Mathieu Mercier has been engaged in reflection
about the defining the place of objects both in the consumer industry and in the
field of art. His research involves a permanent questioning of objects’ symbolic
and utilitarian functions.
Mathieu Mercier (born 1970) graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure in
Bourges and the Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques in Paris. After
obtaining the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2003, followed by his exhibition at the
Pompidou Centre, the ensemble of his work was shown at the Musée d’Art Moderne
de la Ville de Paris/ARC in 2007, then at the Kunsthalle in Nuremberg in 2008. He
was recently the subject of two important exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum in St
Gallen and the Villa Merkel in Esslingen. From 2003-10 he conceived over thirty
exhibitions for a Paris gallery specializing in the sale and diffusion of editions, a
concept he himself originated.
He has curated numerous exhibitions: Sexe, Béatitude et Logique Comptable at
Galerie Michèle Didier (2015); at Galerie du Bellay in Mont-Saint-Aignan (2001); the
Musée d’Art Contemporain in Rochechouart (2003); at the Fondation d’Entreprise
Ricard (2007); with Bernard Marcadé at BHV (2010); at FRAC Basse-Normandie
(2011); and at Galerie Minotaure (Paris) for the Nouvelle Vague project organized
by the Palais de Tokyo (2013). He also designed the Christian Babou retrospective
at FRAC Aquitaine in 2013, partly re-staged at Galerie Sémiose in 2014. Part of
his personal collection was shown at the Centre d’Art de Vélizy under the title
Monochromes et Readymades in April 2014.
Mathieu Mercier is a member of the Scientific Committee of MAD (Multiple Art
Days) organized by the Fondation Antoine de Galbert at the Maison Rouge in Paris.
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Marcel DUCHAMP (1887 – 1968)
Prière de toucher, 1947
Catalogue de l’exposition
Le Surréalisme 1947
Edition 417/999
25 x 22,8 cm (fermé)
28 000 / 32 000 euros
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Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
L’infinitif - La boite blanche, 1966
Boîte, couvercle en plexiglas laissant
apparaître la sérigraphie
Glissière contenant un Moulin à Eau
sur vinyle fixée sur plexiglas blanc
Edition de 150 exemplaires
Signée et datée 66
33 x 29 cm
8 000 / 10 000 euros
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Robert FILLIOU (1926-1987)
La joconde est dans les escaliers, 1969
Pancarte, pastel gras au recto et verso, ficelle
balais-brosse,sceau et serpillère
Edition Tangente, Heidelberg
200 exemplaires signés et numérotés
32,8 x 10,9 cm (pancarte)
3 000 / 4 000 euros
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Ed Rusha (né en 1937)
Sunliners, 1995
Série de 7 aquateintes
Edition 6/50
43 x 33 cm
4 000 / 6 000 euros
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Andy Warhol (1928-1987)
Mildred Scheel, 1980
Sérigraphie couleur avec
poussières de diamant sur
papier arches filigrané
Signée et estampillée
77,5 x 55,5 cm
3 000 / 5 000 euros
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Jeff KOONS (né en 1955)
Balloon Dog (Rouge), 2002
porcelaine et métal
Edition /2300
ø 26 cm
8 000 / 10 000 euros
10
Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994)
Sans titre, 1992
Technique mixte
Edition de 1000, numérotée 923
Edité dans le cadre de l’exposition
« Dieci Arazzi di Alighiero Boetti
e Mimmo Paladino »
31 x 21,5 cm
1 200 / 1 800 euros
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Donald JUDD (1928 - 1994)
Sans Titre, 1969
Caisson en tôle galvanisée
Edition 49/55
67,5 x 57,3 x 10 cm
25 000 / 30 000 €
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Contemporay Art Department
Timothée Chaillou
Adrien de Rochebouët
Upcoming auctions
> June 2015
Contemporay Art
> June 2015
Textile Art - Modern Art, Contemporary Art and Design
www.piasa.fr
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