BILL CULBERT (NEW ZEALAND/BRITISH 1935-2019) §
GOLD SPHERE, 1982
£1,197
Auction: MODERN MADE Part II | 01 November 2024 | Lots 80 to 444
Description
signed, dated and inscribed Artists Proof, metal with pin holes, internally fitted with bulb
Dimensions
15cm diameter (5 7/8in diameter)
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist;
Private Collection, London.
Footnote
Bill Culbert is regarded as one of New Zealand’s foremost contemporary artists, renowned for work centred around artificial light, explored across the mediums of painting, photography and, as here, sculptural installation. Found and recycled materials also commonly played a part in his practice.
Having begun to establish himself in his home country, in 1957 Culbert accepted a scholarship to study painting at the Royal College of Art, London. A truly international figure, Culbert would spend his career between Provence, France, New Zealand and London, also undertaking residencies in New York and San Franscisco in the 1980s.
Light became incorporated into his work in around 1967, after which time it became his central medium. Culbert was fascinated by its qualities, particularly once diffused through repurposed everyday objects and detritus, including plastic bottles and lamp shades.
Sculptural installations became the most celebrated aspect of his oeuvre, highlighted in solo exhibitions for prestigious institutions such as the Serpentine Gallery, London (1977, 1979 and 1984), and City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (1997). He was also the recipient of many major public commissions, notably Skyline for the Millennium Dome in London (2000), and Void (2006), in the atrium of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. In 2013 Culbert represented New Zealand at the 55th Venice Biennale.
The works offered here represent a broad span of Culbert’s career. Cubic Projections, part of a series produced in 1968, dates to the very early days of his adoption of light; its aesthetic very much redolent of the Pop and sci-fi sensibilities of ‘Swinging Sixties’ London, sitting at the intersection of hard-edged abstraction and psychedelia. Gold Sphere (1982) is a later exploration of the same pierced spherical form, in which the artist has created a very different light effect and play of shadow. GALAXY RWB (1993) is comprised of the most quintessential materials in Culbert’s practice; a fluorescent tube bulb and two plastic bottles.