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145

JAN GROOVER (American, b. 1943) UNTITLED numbered, dated, editioned and signed

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,500.00 - 3,500.00 USD
JAN GROOVER (American, b. 1943) UNTITLED numbered, dated, editioned and signed
JAN GROOVER (American, b. 1943) UNTITLED numbered, dated, editioned and signed "44.4, 1978, 1/3, Jan Groover" on recto in black ink Cibachrome print 14 3/4 x 18 5/8 in. (37.5 x 47.3 cm) paper: 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm) 1978 this print is number 1 from an edition of 3 from the KITCHEN SERIES PROVENANCE Blum Helman Gallery, NEW YORK Private Collection, NEW YORK When they were first exhibited at the Sonnabend Gallery in 1978, Jan Groover's kitchen still lifes startled the art world. The series focused on ordinary utensils, vegetables, and plants that the artist arranged in her own kitchen. Despite their modest subject matter, the photographs employed lush color, artificial light, and a larger-than-life scale to achieve a grandeur normally associated with painting. "The color still lifes not only draw from the cubism of Picasso and Braque," wrote Andy Grundberg, "but also reflect ironically on contemporaneous Pattern and Decoration painting.... Groover stakes her claim squarely within the world of objects. The knives, plants, fruits, cooking molds, and objets trouvés we see in her photographs are at once there and not there; they are represented clearly enough, but in a way that empties them of their functional meaning" (Andy Grundberg, "Jan Groover: Consciousness as Content," CRISIS OF THE REAL: WRITINGS ON PHOTOGRAPHY SINCE 1974, New York: Aperture Foundation, Inc., 1999, p. 141). Indeed, Groover's sophisticated formalism is apparent in the present work, which features the leaves of several houseplants, two forks, and a mixing bowl. Although these objects are pedestrian, the artist coerces magical formal dialogues from their contrasting shapes, colors, and textures, and ultimately creates a Technicolor cubist collage.
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