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• Auction House:
  Bonhams Australia
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  23 Aug 2022 ~ 7pm (AEST)
• Lot #:
  72
• Lot Description:
  Adam Cullen
  (1965-2012)
  Bedtime TV, 2000
  synthetic polymer paint on linen
  152.0 x 213.5cm (59 13/16 x 84 1/16in).
  signed, dated and titled verso: 'Adam Cullen 2000 / "BED TIME TV"
• Provenance:
  Yuill Crowley Gallery, Sydney; The Austcorp Group Limited Art Collection; Sotheby's, Melbourne, 24 August 2009, lot 221; Cooks Hill Galleries, Newcastle; Private collection, Sydney
• Exhibited:
  Adam Cullen - Let's Get Lost, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 May - 27 July 2008
• References:
  Wayne Tunnicliffe, Adam Cullen: Let's Get Lost, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2008, p. 16, pp. 58-59 (illus.), p. 103; Ingrid Periz, Adam Cullen - Scars Last Longer, Craftsman House, Melbourne, 2004, p. 82 (illus.)
• Notes:
  'Bedtime TV visually literalises its title as it depicts a TV placed on a bed. A squiggle of silver static flickers across the screen and a vacantly staring older man looks on. The man is again depicted with a few rapid brushstrokes of black paint, with nuances added by drips and runs that former skein of smaller lines. This could be a portrait of a down-and-outer in a boarding house with hi antennae attuned to the TV as companion but also prison keeper; less bruising to stay in and watch than to leave and interact with the world outside. Cullen is from a generation where growing up with TV marked a generational difference from your parents and while it would be easy to read Cullen's relationship to television as ambivalent or distrustful as he has often cited it one of the sources of his images and disturbing cut-up text passages, he has also written "TV has always been there for me. As a child I would eat, sleep and get ready for school in front of the television. It was my way of getting out of the house. It taught me to see and to use my imagination".'1 1. Tunnicliffe, op.cit. p. 16
• Estimate:
  A$25,000 - 35,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.