Lot 175
MARTIN BOYCE (SCOTTISH B.1967) §
NO BRILLIANTLY COLOURED BIRDS
Modern British & Contemporary Art
Auction: 16 August 2018 at 12:00 BST
Description
Signed and dated '09 in pencil to margin, numbered 22/40, screenprint, unframed
Dimensions
74cm x 102 cm (29in x 40in)
Footnote
Note: Martin Boyce developed this large scale print as part of his No Reflections installation for the Scottish Pavilion of the 2009 Venice Biennale.
Continuing Boyce's interest in the ‘collapse of nature and architecture’ and interior and exterior forms, this print references the empty wooden interior of the artist's bird box sculpture in the vacated Italian Palazzo; the holes in which simultaneously suggest the form of a head or mask. During the development of this project Boyce drew from a short text he had written with an abandoned zoo in mind: ‘warm dry stone and palm leaves, no elephants, no giraffes, no penguins, no brilliantly coloured birds…’.
This language of an abandoned garden is continued with the text 'No Brilliantly Coloured Birds' that tumbles out across the image. The form of the text stems from a central structural motif that forms a core of much of Boyce’s work. This motif is derived from an early black and white photograph of four geometric concrete trees sculpted by Joel and Jan Martel in 1925.
(Text courtesy of Dundee Contemporary Arts)