L'Encyclopedie (Ceiling Plan of a Salon in the Palace of the Marquis de Spinola, Genova)
A large-scale canvas by Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca renders an architectural ceiling plan in delicate ink and graphite lines set against a muted acrylic ground, evoking the cool precision of Enlightenment-era technical draftsmanship. The work draws its source imagery from the famous 18th-century French *Encyclopédie*, reinterpreting the ornate ceiling design of the Marquis de Spinola's Genoese palace as both a map-like diagram and an abstract composition. Kuitca's characteristic blending of architectural notation with painterly ambiguity transforms the blueprint into something simultaneously documentary and dreamlike.
- Medium
- acrylic, ink and graphite on canvas
- Spotted At
- Auction House · Phillips
🔨 Auction Lot
20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale
May 10, 2016
More by Guillermo Kuitca
Puro Teatro (Pure Theatre)
Guillermo Kuitca received international accolades at a young age when he was invited to participate in the XVIII São Paulo Biennal in 1989 and has since exhibited extensively worldwide, including major shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. While his early paintings investigated areas like architecture, theater and cartography, his recent body of work continues to develop into new arenas. The present lot utilizes an architectural floor plan as its base, yet faceted paint layers obscure the viewer’s full comprehension of the represented space, both blocking the didactic nature of the map and simultaneously demonstrating a preoccupation with Cubism. This work relates to Kuitca’s powerhouse exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and shows his aptitude for disrupting the traditional notions of painting by optically exploring three-dimensional space.
2008
Winter Tales
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