[Moshe]

Painting that adorned classic album to be sold

 

The photo-painting Kerze by the German artist Gerhard Richter, is expected to exceed its £2.5m auction guide price thanks to the popularity of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation



By Jonathan Brown
Monday, 18 February 2008




The painting that illustrated one of the most famous album covers in pop history is to be sold at auction. Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation scarcely troubled the charts when it was released in 1988 but has since been recognised as a rock masterpiece, regularly featuring in best album lists.

Later this month, fans of Eighties nostalgia will also have the chance to buy the art that gave the record one of the classiest covers ever produced.
The photo-painting, Kerze (Candle), is the work of avant-garde German artist Gerhard Richter. The original canvas will be put up for sale at Sotheby's in London next week and is likely to sell for several times its catalogue price of £2.5m.
Recently, Richter's canvases have sold at auction in the United States for up to £6.5m. Experts believe that Kerze, given its association with the ultra-hip New York band, will be a "potential flyer" for the elderly German painter.
According to Francis Outred, head of evening auctions and private sales of contemporary art at Sotheby's, the work will strongly appeal to collectors who came of age in the 1980s and now find themselves with a few million pounds to their name.
"There are a lot of collectors out there who grew up loving these pieces and now have the opportunity to buy them," he said.
"This is a unique collaboration of a painter that people want with an album cover by one of the greatest American bands of all time. The fact this is the very picture that was used – taken from a series of 20 paintings – makes it even more special."
Mr Outred explained that Richter never intended his work to be used to accompany the music and had almost certainly never heard of the band.
Nevertheless, the association had added considerable artistic cache to the group and created one of the "greatest album covers of all time".
The 3ft by 3ft canvas is part of a series of paintings completed when Richter was at the height of his power. It is one of five major works to go on sale and was based on a photograph taken in the artist's Dusseldorf studio.
After experimenting with Pop Art in the 1960s, Richter rejected the conventional painting of items in nature. Instead, inspired by his experience as a darkroom assistant and his passion for photography, he began to paint images that he said had "no style, no concept, no judgement".
According to Mr Outred, Kurze takes a timeless romantic symbol and brings it powerfully up to date. The candle itself alludes to the "fragility and mortality" of human experience – a theme accentuated by the application of Richter's "blurring" technique in which he would take a small dry brush to soften the wet paint.
Daydream Nation was the sixth major work by Sonic Youth.
Last year, the band re-released a deluxe version of the double album, complete with live versions and extra studio material. They have also embarked on a world tour, performing the album in its entirety.

Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 27 February

[andrei]

Thanks for the article Moshe!

[sonicl]

2.5 million quid?!?!?!?!

[greenlight]

who's going to buy it? ...somebody rich.

[sonicl]

Perhaps we could all club together and buy.... a square centimetre of it?

[nicfit]

ultra-hip New York band?

[The Usher]

Ha, I saw this in the Metro, which is a crappy free London newspaper.
It said something like "although the album was a flop in the UK...". If it was a flop, I guess it was for all the right reasons.

[king_buzzo]

wait, was this painted for the album?

[The Usher]

Nope, SY just used the image, it's part of a series of works Richter did.

[uhler]

i just bought it. i'm flying out in my private jet in a few hours to pick it up. i'm giving it to the girl from paramore because i feel bad she got gang raped by her band.

[The Usher]

Originally Posted by uhler

i just bought it. i'm flying out in my private jet in a few hours to pick it up. i'm giving it to the girl from paramore because i feel bad she got gang raped by her band.

Hu?

[Fred Cracklin]

http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/sho...highlight=emin

[The Usher]

This is definitely art my friend.

[Fred Cracklin]

That wasn't my point at all. I was just linking to an older and somewhat supplementary post.

As to the aesthetic validity of "Kerze," of course it's art.

Although, bear in mind that it was made by merely projecting a photograph onto a small canvas and color-matching; or perhaps it was only just color-matched and painted right over the mounted photo itself! What saves it are its formal qualities of color and composition; and the content itself (a painting of a sole candle), provides excellent narrative as a subject. Also to the painting's credit, Richter's "blurring technique" (employed with a dry brush onto partially-dried oils) is somewhat unique (in modern art anyway). I'd like to know more about what possible lacquers and varnishes he uses. And, of course, "Kerze" is really the signature piece (owing to SY and DDN) of Gerhard's hyperrealistic works.

IMO, Mr. Richter owes SY a gratuitous payday. Not that it will ever happen, mind you (i.e., the world is fucked-up). He's getting up there in age anyhow.

BTW, don't get too ired by what you may perhaps perceive as possible provocation, but I've seen "Kerze" (and other similar (he has several candles) hyperreal Richter works like "Skull" too) in person. That candle flame is quite extraordinary. I've also seen a series of larger AbEx canvases by Richter done up in a palette-knifing style with rather garish and brutish colors. As far as "contemporary" German artists go, Anselm Kiefer is better, but I still like Richter.

[avantgarde1]

SY's record label (whoever it is now) should buy it and give it to them.

[pantophobia]

from bloomberg

Richter's 1983 painting, ``Kerze (Candle),'' featured on the cover of Sonic Youth's 1988 album ``Daydream Nation,'' fetched 7.1 million pounds, or 8 million pounds with commission.

[nicfit]

damn me and my 7.05 million pounds offer...

[sonicl]

It looks really great hanging in my toilet.

[nicfit]

Originally Posted by sonicl

It looks really great hanging in my toilet.

that "l" stands for "loo" , then?

[sonicl]

It's "lavatory", thank you very much. You damn plebian!