Lot 109: OSCAR TUAZON

Wall
This work is accompanied by a certificate ofauthenticity.

243 x 223 x 99.5 cm (95 5/8 x 87 3/4 x 39 1/8 in)

steel, Plexiglas, glass, silicone, paint

2009

Paris, Palais de Tokyo, Dynasty, 11 June–5 September 2010
Beaumont-du-Lac, Centre International d’art ed du paysage de Vassiviere, Oscar Tuazon:
Bend it till it Breaks, 15 November 2009 – 14 February 2010

Balice Hertling, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Wall, 2009, by the American artist Oscar Tuazon (born in Seattle in 1975) exemplifies his engagement with materiality and spatial tension in his sculptural constructions. Tuazon, who now works in Paris, attended the Whitney Independent Study Program and trained under Vito Acconci. He is now regarded as one of the most significant sculptors of his generation.
Tuazon’s structures radically reform the spaces which they occupy. He has suggested that “architecture doesn’t start with function it starts
with an idea” (in S. Campagnola, ‘Oscar Tuazon: Formal Concerns, Utopian Concepts’, Flash Art, no. 271, March–April 2010), and in realigning the boundaries between architecture and sculpture, Tuazon’s forms create a dynamic which challenge and extend our notions of space and environment. The architectural settings which his works inhabit are inescapably forced to adapt – fundamentally, the sculptures mould their surroundings, asserting a fluctuating tension between internal and external, space and limit, balance and instability. Created with raw industrial materials, Wall is suggestive not only of a minimalist sensibility but also DIY aesthetics and he formal language of architecture. Both space and substance are integral to Tuazon’s work and in this particular sculpture, Tuazon utilizes a broad spectrum of materials. Steel, silicone, Plexiglas and paint are all combined, linked together by a modular geometric structure. This diverse combination of materials engenders a contrasting web of textured layers, both painterly and reflective, and surfaces through which the sculpture’s steel frame is woven like a thread. This variable movement of material distinguishes the
structured outer lines of the sculpture which stand rigid and unmoving.
This duality simultaneously constrains and awakens the space in which the sculpture stands and is a recurrent theme in Tuazon’s sculptures. In many ways, his forms encourage such dialogue not only between sculpture and the surrounding architecture but also the viewer and the space. Typically walls are designed to enclose and restrain – perhaps Wall should be seen as a visual barrier but one constructed to be broken through.