Dorothy Dehner

Untitled

1960

This unique, small bronze sculpture by Sven Dalsgaard, dated 1964, transforms an ordinary object into something psychologically charged and quietly ambiguous. Standing just 11.25 inches tall, the form recalls a chair lifted into an improbable vertical stance. Its narrow seat and elongated legs deny any practical use. What Dalsgaard presents is not furniture but the idea of a chair, reduced to structure and presence rather than function. The bronze surface is worked rather than refined, with visible traces of the artist’s hand that catch the light unevenly. This rough handling introduces a sense of vitality into an otherwise rigid form. The exaggerated proportions give the sculpture a totem-like quality, almost figurative in character, as if the chair itself has assumed an upright posture. As the viewer moves around it, the open spaces within the structure become as important as the solid bronze, creating a shifting balance between mass and void. There is a clear surrealist element in this transformation. The chair remains immediately recognizable, yet it no longer belongs to the world of ordinary experience. By displacing scale and function, Dalsgaard creates a subtle tension between familiarity and estrangement. The sculpture suggests presence without an occupant and purpose without use, encouraging psychological rather than literal interpretation. This aligns with a restrained, Northern strain of Surrealism, one shaped by austerity and understatement rather than spectacle. Signed and dated on the base, the sculpture dates from a period when Dalsgaard increasingly explored the symbolic potential of everyday forms. Modest in scale but rich in implication, it demonstrates how a common object can be quietly reimagined as a vessel for reflection, ambiguity, and poetic abstraction. A unique bronze sculpture. Born in Vorup near Randers, Sven Dalsgaard was self-taught as a painter. His earliest paintings are Naturalistic but around 1934 he was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee to paint more Abstract works. He debuted at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling in 1943. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp, he embarked on Surrealism in the 1940s but moved into a simpler, more stylized approach in the 1950s, producing tall thin sculptures...

Davide Quayola (Italian, b. 1982) "Laocoon Fragment #8_005.003" 2016 Made of Iron, epoxy, fiberglass, mirror-polished steel & wood. Dimensions: 19.7 x 11 x 15.75 inches (50 x 28 x 40 cm) Base Plate Dimensions: .8 x 23.7 x 23.7 inches (2 x 60 x 60 cm) base From the signed and numbered edition of 3 "Quayola employs technology as a lens to explore the tensions and equilibriums between seemingly opposing forces: the real and artificial, figurative and abstract, old and new. Constructing immersive installations, he engages with and re-imagines canonical imagery through contemporary technology. Landscape painting, classical sculpture and iconography are some of the historical aesthetics that serve as a point of departure for Quayola’s hybrid compositions. His varied practice, all deriving from custom computer software, also includes audiovisual performance, immersive video installations, sculpture, and works on paper. His work has been performed and exhibited in many prestigious institutions worldwide including V&A Museum, London; Park Avenue Armory, New York; National Art Center, Tokyo; UCCA, Beijing; How Art Museum, Shanghai; SeMA, Seoul; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Ars Electronica, Linz; Sonar Festival, Barcelona and Sundance Film Festival. Also a frequent collaborator on musical projects, Quayola has worked with composers, orchestras and musicians including London Contemporary Orchestra, National Orchestra of Bordeaux, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Vanessa Wagner, Jamie XX...