NEW YORK – On Tuesday, September 20, starting at 6 pm Eastern time, Jasper52 will conduct an auction titled Exclusive Street Art, featuring 78 lots of works by practitioners who enliven public spaces with post-graffiti imagery. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.
The sale lineup includes numerous works by Richard Hambleton, including abstract landscapes; vibrantly colored pieces by Carlos Ramirez, Albert Reyes and COPE2; sketches by Daniel Johnston and also Ed Templeton; and contributions from artists who work under all-caps handles such as SEEN, REVOLT, STAYHIGH149, BLADE, FREEDOM, DAZE, PJAY ONE, IZ THE WIZ, RAMMELLZEE, DONDI WHITE, TKID170, MIN ONE, SHAME 125, GHOST and LADY PINK.
First among the selection of pieces by Mexican-American street artist Carlos Ramirez (b. 1967-) is Super Chango, an acrylic, collage and mixed media on canvas. As a child, he would sit in his mother’s car and draw for hours while she worked in the fields, picking crops. His mother was also a supporter of Cesar Chavez, and sheltered the civil rights leader during a stretch when he was forced to move homes frequently to avoid assassination. Championing the underdog is a key theme in Ramirez’s work; he has placed crowns on the heads of his artistic subjects so they will feel empowered. That might be the reason why one graces the head of the burly, muscular figure in Super Chango. Measuring 16 by 20in, signed by the artist and dated 2019, it has an estimate of $3,500-$4,000.
Leading the contributions from Richard Hambleton (Canadian and American, 1952-2017) is a moody canvas titled Grey Landscape. It lacks a date, but he probably created it later in his life, after he shifted away from figurative work, including his noted Shadowman images. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Hambleton relocated to New York in time to join the generation of artists that included Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. His public art took the form of chalk outlines drawn on the ground around the bodies of willing friends to create pseudo-crime scenes. Hambleton died of cancer at age 65. Grey Landscape is estimated at $34,000-$41,000.
Multiple works by COPE2 (aka Fernando Carlo, b. 1968-) appear in the September 20 sale, but perhaps the strongest is an undated, untitled work rendered in mixed media acrylic spray enamel on canvas. Dominated by shades of peach, pink and purple, it is distinguished by a white Arabic numeral 2 in the upper right corner. The piece carries an estimate of $4,000-$5,000.
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