3rd Sep, 2020 20:00
Modern & Contemporary Art
52
Jo Ractliffe (South Africa 1961-)
In a hotel room in Braamfontein I and II (from the Hotel series), diptych
lambda prints
Sold for R25,036
Estimated at R25,000 - R40,000
lambda prints
(2)
sheet size: 98 x 131 cm each
Notes:
Jo Ractliffe is one of South Africa’s most renowned contemporary fine art photographers. Her work is often interpreted as focusing on the violence of displacement and absence in landscapes, exemplified by her significant 2010 book As Terras do Fim do Mundo which traces the scars left on the landscape by the Angolan civil war. This has led, alongside a similar earlier collection, Terreno Occupado, and a documentation of the grim apartheid-linked torture site Vlakplaas, to an interpretation of Ractliffe’s work as documentary.The works on auction give a more nuanced view of her practice. She has said she is interested in the role of photography in capturing a sense of desire and loss. The precarious nature of the image as either voyeuristic or neutrally observant is exquisitely rendered in the diptych In a hotel room in Braamfontein. Are the subjects here about to consummate an illicit liaison? Are they entering or leaving? Similarly, the almost forensic technique used in capturing her beloved dog’s chewed toy in the photograph from the series Guess who loves you pitches the image into a very ambivalent space between love, nostalgia and violence.
James Sey
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Auction: Modern & Contemporary Art, 3rd Sep, 2020
This Spring, Aspire Art Auctions broke new ground with a fresh, yet considered selection of artworks that is demographically more representative and reflects the spirit of current times. With a strong focus on South Africa, the sale also proudly represented artists from 10 African countries (Benin, DRC, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Sudan, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe) and international artists from Europe, the UK and USA.
A great highlight was Edoardo Villa’s monumental steel sculpture titled Traverse from 1957 which achieved R4,893,400 – an auction record for the artist. Other exceptional offerings included works by Gerard Sekoto, George Pemba, Peter Clarke and Nicholas Hlobo.
HIGHLIGHTS
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