Surfaces with depth: Where does Victor Vasarely's severe geometry encounter Emilio Vedova's fierce gestural painting, where does Arnulf Rainer's overpaintings meet Joan Miró's textile pieces, where does expressive contemporary design share the limelight with dynamic Gallé vases and lidded tankards from the Renaissance age? At the Dorotheum auction week from 21st - 25th November 2011, where Austrian and international art collectors are presented with a choice selection of modern and contemporary art, design, art nouveau and historical silver, as well as jewellery, wrist- and pocket-watches.

Auction Week 21. - 25. 11. 2011:
Silver, 21. November 2011, 2:00 P.M.
Jewellery, 21. November 2011, 7:00 P.M.
Design, 22. November 2011, 5:00 P.M.
Art Nouveau and 20th Cent. Applied Art, 23. November 2011, 2:00 P.M.
Modern Art, 23. November 2011, 5:00 P.M.
Contemporary Art, 24. November 2011, 6:00 P.M.
Wrist- and Pocket-Watches, 25. Nov. 2011, 6:00 P.M.

Public Viewing:
from 12. November 2011

Venue:
PALAIS DOROTHEUM, Wien 1, Dorotheergasse 17

Press Office:
Mag. Doris Krumpl, Tel. + 43-1-515 60-406, doris.krumpl@dorotheum.at

Window on History
Contemporary Art 24. November 2011 

Two of the auction week's absolute highlights will be the auctions of modern and contemporary art. Only very few works of contemporary art are considered instant classics in the eye of art history: At the Dorotheum auction week, this actually applies to two of the important works on offer, Robert Indiana's Berlin Wall sculpture and a monumental painting by Ilya Kabakov. A painting like a poem, with his LOVE painting of the 1960s Indiana created one of the iconic images of the 20th century, a radiant Pop-beacon for the hippie generation later enshrined in the form of a US postage stamp. When in 1991, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Robert Indiana was given a wall fragment for artistic treatment, the star painter sprayed one face with his famous 'LOVE' logo and put the 'one-word poem' WALL on the other side. This piece of contemporary art as well as contemporary history now comes up for sale at the Dorotheum auction of contemporary art on 24th November 2011, 50 years after the Berlin Wall was first erected (€ 90.000 - 120.000).

A large scale painting of art- and world history by Ilya Kabakov, At the University 1972, combines a variety of historical, formal, and aesthetic references to Suprematism, Soz Art, Impressionism, and Expressionism, and depicts Lomonossow University in Moscow with a group of Eastern and Western intellectuals. Already full of allusions and effective on several levels, the painting gains an additional dimension through the fictitious authorship attributed to it by Kabakov. Like so many other critical, anti-commercial art movements, it took a long time for Conceptionalism to be discovered by art-history and by the international art market, not least on the strength of Kabakov's work. The artist now lives in the USA and refers to himself as an American. His large scale painting is estimated at between 600.000 and 800.000 Euro.

Avant-garde

In the contemporary art category, the wide spectrum of the auction's selection is illustrated by Austrian artists such as Rainer, Mikl, and Hrdlicka, German stars like Daniel Richter, Anselm Kiefer, and Günter Uecker, along with proponents of the Italian avant-garde of the 1960s, including Fontana, Bonalumi, Castellani, and Vedova. Enrico Castellani's minimalist Superficie Bianca of 1969 is generally anticipated to be one of the auction's highlights. Works by Lawrence Weiner, Peter Halley, Jannis Kounellis, Marcel Broodhaers, Gilbert & George, or Vito Acconci demonstrate the international scope of the event. Of

local Viennese interest is Chisto's (never realised) design for the wrapping of the CAT tower, one of the anti-aircraft installations erected in Arenberg Park during WWII (€ 18.000 - 25.000, 2006).

Big heads
Modern Art, 23. November 2011 

Modern art on 23rd November 2011 scores with artists such as Francis Picabia (Landscape of 1938, € 40.000 - 60.000), Giorgio Morandi, Giorgio de Chirico, and Paula Moderson-Becker. The differences in these artists' styles is revealed by a number of heads/portraits, for example Alexej Jawlensky's abstract „Meditation: L’heure bleu est en moi“, Amedeo Modigliani's portrait drawing depicting the poet Jean Cocteau, Oskar Kokoschka's portrait of an actress, or two of Werner Berg's typical heads of peasant women. Head of a Dancer by Erika Giovanna Klien, the foremost proponent of Viennese Kinetism, was painted in 1923 and presents a composite picture puzzle of many individual faces (€ 70.000 - 100.000).

Woush! Please have a seat!
Design 22. November 2011

The design auction on 22. November offers a wide variety of seating choices: One could go with the classic elegance of the red lacquer, leather upholstered, metal Mod MR 80/9 stool - a variant of the stool matching the Barcelona Chair - designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1930. Or one could have a seat on Cow Bench Eileen, valued at between 18.000 and 22.000 Euro, by the young German designer Julia Lohmann, currently living in London. Her limited edition cow-seats - headless, organic looking, and each bearing a different cow-name - attracted considerable interest at the 2005 Milan Salone del Mobilebut also met with some rejection. According to Lohmann of build Magazine, "The Cow Bench uses the skin of a single cow rather than the six skins going into the production of a typical leather sofa. The only difference is that the Cow Bench underscores the origin of the animal nature of the material rather than hiding it. If the honest Cow Bench is considered inacceptable, the disguised leather sofa should be twice as inacceptable." Sign for a Language by Yakoov Agam (1980, € 13.000 - 16.000) is a multi-functional seat art-object that can be arranged in several different configurations.

Zaha Hadid's four meter long Woush Sofa floats into our view like a spaceship. The high priestess of contemporary, expressive modernism designed the sofa in 1985/86 for Edra/Italy (€ 26.000 - 32.000). Recalling the colours and shapes of radical 1960s design, a re-combinable 12-part ensemble of Ketting Bank foam seats was designed in 2000/2001 by the Dutch designer duo Tejo Remy & Rene Veenhuizen (€ 10.000 - 15.000).

All that glitters …
Silver 21. November 2011 

Right in time for winter-time toasts, a large punch set from Moscow dating to 1882 bears the Klebnikov maker's mark and employs the cloisonné technique, i.e. a gilt silver framework enclosing polychrome enamel (French: cloisonné; estimate € 40.000 - 60.000). Artful angel- and flower ornaments decorate a gilt silver, Renaissance Period lidded tankard from Silesia (€ 14.000 - 18.000).

That certain spark
Art Nouveau 23. November 2011 

Floral designs and graceful lines at the art nouveau auction include a wide range of French glass art with Gallé pieces such as a marquetry vase decorated with butterflies (€ 20.000 - 30.000) or a rare vase decorated with lady's slippers (€ 8.000 - 12.000). Flowing 'reform' dresses go well with special jewellery, as recently seen at an exhibition at the Leopold Museum. A pendant and chain designed by Hans Bolek for the 1914 Cologne Werkbund exhibition is priced at between 8.000 and 12.000 Euro. Distinguished by its plain geometry enlivened by floral décor, a small Bonbon box by Dagobert Peche (€ 30.000 - 50.000) was made in 1916 by the "Wiener Werkstätte". Perfectly crafted art nouveau furniture, for example by Thonet, round off the auction's selection.

Jewellery 21. November 2011
Wrist- and Pocket-Watches 25. November 2011

The highlights of this jewellery auction come from the Art Deco period: a diamond diadem of approx. 29 carat can also be worn as a brooch (€ 60.000 - 100.000) while a bracelet set with 15 carat diamonds combines platinum and cultured pearls (€ 15.000 - 20.000).

The auction week will finish with the auction of wrist- and pocket-watches on 25th November featuring, among many other lots, a Rolex Sea-Dweller Submariner 2000 Double Red, ca. 1973 (€ 10.000 - 16.000).