14th Feb, 2020 20:00
Aspire X PIASA | Modern & Contemporary African Art
73
Robert Hodgins (South African 1920–2010)
Totems in a Desert
oil and charcoal on canvas
Artwork date: 1998
Signature details: signed, dated and inscribed with the title on the reverse
Sold for R739,700
Estimated at R700,000 - R900,000
oil and charcoal on canvas
Artwork date: 1998
Signature details: signed, dated and inscribed with the title on the reverse
(1)
121.5 x 91.5 cm
Notes:
The totems, or totem poles, that Robert Hodgins references in Totems in a Desert are monuments created by First Peoples of the American Northwest to mark a family’s lineage and proclaim its rights and privileges in the community. Typically, totem poles consist of a vertical accumulation of stylised human and animal forms and representations of supernatural beings. Hodgins has captured the basic elements of these totems but has developed the surrealist implications of their iconography by deliberate reference to Modernist European art. The many eyes of Hodgins’s totems put one in mind of some of Picasso’s portraits; and these features, the dress suit, the shoes and the hats bear unmistakable reference to that prime Surrealist, René Magritte: even the unlikely conversation that appears to be taking place between the two totems has a distinct surrealist flavour. Hodgins’s decision to move his two totems from the forested Pacific Northwest to a bleak desert setting effectively situated them in a favourite scenario in his work, the American West. Hodgins regularly depicted Stetson-wearing, pistol-packing cowboys and be-feathered First People—or ‘Red Indians’ as he would provocatively call them— in desert landscapes of wigwams, candelabrum cacti and endless horizons. This image of the ‘Wild West’, as Hodgins well knew, is a Hollywood creation of Gary Cooper, John Wayne and others, in which good overcame evil, and culture (of a sort) prevailed over a very twentieth-century American understanding of nature. In this mythical world, the contests were clearly defined, and both characters and settings very sharply drawn. Hodgins seized on the surreal dimension of these dramas and delighted in the freedom of invention they provided. The radical stylistic elements of Totems in a Desert—the livid green sky and the uncompromising near-symmetrical placement of the two totems—cleverly complement the absurdist features of its iconography.
Michael Godby
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Auction: Aspire X PIASA | Modern & Contemporary African Art, 14th Feb, 2020
Aspire Art Auctions partnered with Paris-based house Piasa, to introduce an Africa-focused auction presenting some of the best examples of modern and contemporary art produced on this continent. This was the first time an African and European auction house partnered to present a sale of African art, in Africa, for a global audience.
The sale included 139 artists representing 27 countries from Africa and the diaspora and spotlighted key collecting segments from 20th century modernism to contemporary production and photography. The lead-lot, Marlene Dumas’ Oktober 1973 achieved a stellar R7,055,600 well above its high estimate of R3-5 million. Also on offer were some of the most in-demand African artists including Chéri Samba, Aboudia Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, Gareth Nyandoro, Mustafa Maluka and William Kentridge.
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