Kenny Schachter

Kounellis’ Sensory “Sack with Z” Leads Phillips

Phillips Auction today 3pm. Highlights: Jannis Kounellis, Untitled (Sack with Z) Est. $8,000–12,000. Jannis Kounellis (1936-2017)’s 2001 Sack with Z is from a series that combine organic and industrial materials, painted lettering and found objects in a vitrine. Each object was chosen for sensory qualities: the coldness of steel, the smooth transparency of glass, the roughness of burlap, and the earthiness of coal. Kounellis refused to provide explanations for his work, preferring that viewers see them as exceprts from a fictional narrative in three dimensions. Untitled (Sack with Z) particularly echoes Marcel Duchamp’s 1921 Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?, in which marble cubes resembling sugar cubes are kept in a metal birdcage; Rosemarie Trockel, 1989, Traum, Est. $1,000–2,000, 1989 Multiple comprised of ruler and metal base, 15 1/8 x 5 x 5 in. (38.4 x 12.7 x 12.7 cm), Signed and numbered 3/21 in pencil, additionally with printed date and inscription ‘make one into ten and ten is none’ on a label affixed to the reverse. Rosemarie Trockel’s Traum is an example of a readymade by the artist, a Traum-branded ruler affixed with a plaque that reads “MAKE ONE INTO TEN AND TEN IS NONE.” In her transformation of the work from commonplace object to art, Trockel displaces the ruler’s characteristic, gendered association with the realm of a woman’s domestic work: in its typical function, this ruler would have been used by seamstresses to mark consistent hem lines on a skirt or dress. Traum is among a series of readymades Trockel created to address the construction and deconstruction of the feminine sphere, having also elevated objects such as stove burners, irons, brooms, ladles, and scrub brushes. And Kenny Schachter I AM NOT A ROLE MODEL / DUCHAMP Est. $1,000–1,500, 1995 Photograph, on wove paper, contained in the original artist’s frame. 23 5/8 x 15 1/8 in. (60 x 38.4 cm) framed 24 1/8 x 15 5/8 in. (61.3 x 39.7 cm) Signed, dated and inscribed ‘The provenance of this work is more significant - certainly more valuable than the work itself’ in black ink on the reverse of the frame.