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Sam Durant — Still Life  (Barrels, Head)
Sam Durant

Still Life (Barrels, Head)

A large-scale chromogenic print by Sam Durant depicts an unsettling arrangement of industrial oil barrels alongside a disembodied head, merging the language of classical still life painting with charged contemporary imagery. Durant uses the traditional genre to provoke questions about power, violence, and political history, subverting the domestic tranquility typically associated with still life compositions. The rich, vivid colors of the chromogenic process lend the image a heightened, almost seductive quality that intensifies the tension between aesthetic beauty and disturbing content.

Medium
chromogenic print

🔨 Auction Lot

Under the Influence

April 13, 2015

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About this work

Sam Durant, Still Life (Barrels, Head)

A large-scale chromogenic print by Sam Durant depicts an unsettling arrangement of industrial oil barrels alongside a disembodied head, merging the language of classical still life painting with charged contemporary imagery. Durant uses the traditional genre to provoke questions about power, violence, and political history, subverting the domestic tranquility typically associated with still life compositions. The rich, vivid colors of the chromogenic process lend the image a heightened, almost seductive quality that intensifies the tension between aesthetic beauty and disturbing content.

Medium
chromogenic print
Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

Objects, Industrial, Monochrome, Bold, Conceptual, American, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, Still Life, Contemporary

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