Auction in Zurich: Bird in love meets flower thrower
Niki de Saint Phalle: “L’Oiseau Amoureux”, upper estimate 180,000 francs
Image: Koller / VG Bildkunst, Bonn 2022
Banksy’s “Flower Thrower” gives wings to shoplifters in London according to the artist’s will. Things are quite legal in Zurich, where a version of the work is part of the range of modern and contemporary art at the Koller auction house.
vor a few days caused an Instagram call from Banksy for a stir: The British graffiti artist asked shoplifters to use the fashion label Guess. The background was the use of a motif by the artist in the shop window of the London shop, which Banksy has not obtained. It was the “Flower Thrower” that Banksys first sprayed on a house wall in Beit Sahour in the West Bank in 2003; In the meantime, the motif has become iconic: a masked young man in a throwing movement, who is about to throw a bouquet of flowers instead of a Molotov cocktail or a stone.
Addressed countless times, the artist himself has also created different works based on this mural. Koller is now calling up the color serigraph “Flower Thrower Triptych (Grey)” from 2019, probably Banksy’s most recent implementation. In doing so, he divides the mural into three detailed views, each section is framed separately. The representation as a triptych gives the whole the character of an old master panel painting. The work is expected to bring in 180,000 to 240,000 francs and leads the auction with graphics on December 1st (copy of 300). On the same day, 113 lots from Koller’s contemporaries arrive Zurich Under the hammer. The impressive, gold-patinated bronze sphere with a diameter of 30 centimeters was made by Arnaldo Pomodoro in 1966. “Sfera” belongs to his famous series of works, the spheres, in which he contrasts a perfectly polished exterior with insights within (one of two; estimate 150,000 to 200 000 francs). Two of his typical line paintings come from Zdeněk Sýkora, “No. 8 – Trio Op 2” from 1978 (150,000/250,000) and “Line No 65” from 1990 (70,000/90,000), available to call. From 1973 onwards a system of the Czech computer pioneers, based on the calculated random principle, forms the basis of these works. Niki de Saint Phalle became world famous with her sensually opulent female figures. One of these “Nanas” also adorns the surface of the 155 centimeter high and brightly painted polyester sculpture of an eagle-like bird “L’Oiseau Amoureux”, which the French-Swiss artist created in the early 1990s (140,000/180,000).