Lot 334 | "Donnay # 1"

LAVIER, BERTRAND
1949 Châtillon-sur-Seine

Title: "Donnay # 1".
Date: 1989.
Technique: Acrylic on table-tennis table (2 parts).
Measurement: Together: 153 x 275cm.
Notation: Signed and dated. verso on the left part: Bertrand Lavier 1989. Here additionally titled.


Provenance:
- Galerie Martin Detterer, Frankfurt a.M.
- Kewenig Galerie, Berlin
- European private collection
- Dorotheum, Vienna, auc. 10th June 2015, Lot 757

Exhibitions:
- Castello di Rivoli, Museo d´arte contemporanea, Turin 1996/97

Literatur:
- Gianelli, Ida (ed): Bertrand Lavier, Mailand 1996, p. 140, ill. p. 68

Bertrand Lavier finds his way into art not trough an academic institution. The french man graduates as horticulturist from university and primarily self-studies art. The relevanve of his art works for contemorary art becomes very clear with regards to his exhibition history: the artist exhibits several times at the Biennale in Venice and the documanta in Kassel. Bertrand Lavier's work "Donnay # 1" from the year 1989 stands in the tradition of the "Objet trouvé". Known for his in acrylic paint thickly coated pianos, cars and fridges, Lavier declares a two part table-tennis table as art here. The acrylic paint is applies in rough, thick strikes and illustrates that it is not about the reinterpretation of colours. Keeping the general design of the table-tennis table in mind, Lavier abducts the viewer in a world of artistic grafting. The artist poses questions as well as establishes points of view and deals with aestheticisim rather critically. This relates to the meaning of the work as well as to the role of the eartist as the "director of material.".