At Weng Contemporary, we are excited to inform you that we will be offering El Anatsui's shimmering Gold Band, which was created earlier this year. This limited edition of 12 is the largest printed work that has been created by the artist entirely in metal. Hand-cut and hand-sculpted, the sections are carefully riveted together with copper wire.

Anatsui's exploration of metal started before the turn of the century, in late 1997. According to Anatsui, sculpting with metal offers him the possibility to manipulate the mass and matter as well as allows him to explore the positive and negative space forming. This metallic hand-cut and hand-sculpted editions are referencing Anatsui's iconic Gawu series, which in Ewe; a Niger-Congo language, means “metal hanging” or “metal cloak”. The patterns draw links to Western and non-Western ornaments, among ethnic Ghanaian textiles (kente, a traditional clothing fabric previously reserved for high-ranking men), Byzantine mosaics, and Indo-Islamic tile pieces

We are currently accepting interest in this limited edition and will be able to provide more information upon request.

El Anatsui
Gold Band, 2020
Hand sculpted and formed UV cured acrylic resin
inkjet on aluminum with irregular hand-cut edges and copper wire
Edition of 12
Approximately 152 x 152 x 10,2 cm (60 x 60 x 4 in.)
In mint condition

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Or send us an email at info@wengcontemporary.com
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With this intimate work, the viewer can trace Christo's movements on the silkscreen - from his decisional placement of the strings, as if it is to hold the Earth in place and provides a quick-fix solution, to the masking tape emphasizing borders on the work as well as to Christo's handwriting which exposes him in a machine typed and industrial world. Throughout the work, lines break the piece into a topography map dividing the image into calculated squares and into a battlefield, only time will tell who will win the battle or the war.

Questions? Click on the LiveAssistance button
Or send us an email at info@wengcontemporary.com
WhatsApp/WeChat: +41 76 541 56 58

Peter Blake was born in Dartford, Kent. From 1951 to 1953 he served in the Royal Air Force. Following his time in the national service, Blake studied at the Gravesend School of Art, and then the Royal College of Art from 1953 to 1956. During the late 1950s. His paintings included imagery from advertisements, music hall entertainment, and wrestlers, often including collaged elements. Sir Peter Blake is perhaps the most recognized and highly regarded artist of the British Pop Art movement. He is a painter, sculptor, draughtsman and printmaker. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1956, Blake has appropriated pop culture icons and advertising imagery to create sincere homage to the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Elvis Presley and professional wrestlers.

Russell Young (born March 13, 1959) is a British-American artist. Young studied photography, film and graphic design at the Chester Art College and later attended Exeter Art College. He moved to London and gained recognition photographing the early live club shows in the late 1970s of Bauhaus, R.E.M. and the Smiths. During this period he shot portraits of Morrissey, Björk, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, New Order, Diana Ross, Paul Newman. In 1986, he shot the ‘Faith’ sleeve for George Michael. In the following ten years he directed more than 100 music videos during the heyday of MTV.

In September 2000, while living in New York City, he began to concentrate on art and to devote himself to painting.

Young is best known for his enamel, screen-print paintings on linen, which explore celebrity, rock and roll, death and history. His earliest notable works as an artist are his "Pig Portraits", life-size Police mug shots of celebrities screened onto canvas. First shown in 2003 they proved a critical success and were exhibited in London and the United States. He followed this with his Fame + Shame series that explored American life as seen through the eyes of a young man growing up in England.

Fascination Rosenthal

Beauty and perfection of the highest standards, Rosenthal signifies nothing more and nothing less. The name itself epitomizes contemporary design and art in both porcelain and glass, and more besides: Rosenthal stands for luxury, lifestyle and a special aestehetic feeling - for products without sophisticated tabletop culture and contemporary interiors would not be the same.

A sense of tradition coupled with the avantgarde is the underlying principle behind the worldwide leading company. Experience gathered over 130 years of company history, the will to innovate and the strong cooperations with the best international designers, architects, artists, craftsmen and celebrities guarantee the success of this exclusive company philiosophy.

In Paper Kite Butterfly on Oleander, Hirst features his signature motif – the butterfly – alive in its natural surroundings, hanging from a beautiful, strikingly coloured blossom. In this, he has created an uplifting and celestial image that inspires childlike wonder in the face of such a beauty of nature. At the same time, however, it provokes fundamental questions about the meaning of life, a life which is characterized by death, and the fragility of biological existence.

“I love butterflies because when they are dead they look alive."—Damien Hirst

There is no imminent promise of salvation, no escape offered in these works. Those black pills, as in Dark Black Heaven, are as threatening as they are strangely attractive, a dark fatal allure which we already know leads to one ultimate destiny.

Hirst’s work questions the equivocal role of medicine. It can either take life and save life or destroy and restore. These pills are not a memento mori like the skulls or the butterflies. They are a symbol of resignation and alienation from life, and a fatal attraction towards death.

"It’s like God should be, the way they sell you the pills, the forms, the utopia, the hope, the cure. We’ve come a long way since quack doctors."—Damien Hirst

The pharmaceutical cabinets, as in Hirst’s work Utopia, question people´s complete reliance on medications and their power to heal, which fulfill the natural desire for immortality. However, the question is: Can drugs cure this problem, or can art?

On the other hand, Gold tears, which is part of the Utopia series, depicts rows of shiny diamonds on shelves covered with golden foil in front of a golden-beige background. The image is an intense vision of a golden cabinet filled with diamonds, a vision often associated with glorious eternity. But as always in Hirst’s art, the ambiguity is obvious – this cabinet points to the fact that behind all the shiny glittery surfaces there might be nothing, no meaning, and no soul. And hence the desire for eternity is less a promise than a condemnation.

"I can’t understand why most people believe in medicine and don’t believe in art, without questioning either."—Damien Hirst