Find Lots

• Auction House:
  Mossgreen-Webb's
• Sale Name:
  The Peter Jarvis & Helene Phillips Collection
• Sale Date:
  30 Nov 2017 ~ 6.30pm (New Zealand Daylight Time)
• Lot #:
  19
• Lot Description:
  Bill Hammond
  Job Search
  acrylic on wallpaper, 1989
  530mm x 1860mm (irregular)
  signed W. D. Hammond, dated 1989 lower right and inscribed JOB SEARCH lower centre in brushpoint
• Provenance:
  Aquired from a private collection, Lyttleton.
• Notes:
  ESSAY: Conceived in 1989, Job Search is a work that sits at a critical artistic crossroad for Bill Hammond. His epiphany-inducing visit to the bird-encrusted Auckland Islands as part of the Art in the Sub-Antarctic project in 1989, ignited a dramatic shift in the artist’s practice, which he continued to develop through the 1990s and beyond. Before Hammond’s visit to the Auckland Islands, his work was a manifestation of the social climate that was Christchurch in the 1970s and ’80s. His typically monochrome palette and figure-filled scenes reference the energy-filled genres of punk, rock ’n’ roll, surrealism, graffiti and cartoons: all simultaneously providing a rebellion against suburban conservatism. Communicating Hammond’s awareness and concern for identity politics and economic uncertainty, Job Search captures his interest in portraying the anxiety felt in New Zealand and the cruel, unsettling reality faced by many during a period of high unemployment brought on by the 1987 stock market crash. The comic-strip style composition of Job Search is typical of Hammond’s work during this period. Multiple scenes spread out across the picture plane, which Hammond has applied directly onto an unconventional surface: a sheet of floral wallpaper. To the left, a figure hopefully scans the job listings in the newspaper. The same figure is repeated on the right, the newspaper replaced by a black, bottomless pit, offering nothing to the figure and those that line up behind him. The central portion of the work portrays a desperate figure, holding two corporate bodies at gunpoint, highlighting Hammond’s view that corporate industries were avoiding their responsibilities to the New Zealand economy and yielding to a paranoid culture of fear. Amanda Morrissey-Brown
• Estimate:
  NZ$20,000 - 30,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

  Can't see the realised price? Upgrade your subscription now!

• Category:
  Art

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