Lot 281: Philippe Bradshaw (1965-2005)

Philippe Bradshaw (1965-2005)
Untitled (Mr. Tooth Series)
anodized aluminium chains
120 7/8 x 100 7/8 x ¾in. (307 x 256 x 1.9cm.)
Executed in 2002

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 2002.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 20% on the buyer's premium.
'We enjoy the cynical, the empty when we can overcome the icon, we enjoy being what we are: iconoclasts, breakers of images, in bondage' (Bradshaw, quoted in A. Dannatt, 'Philippe Bradshaw: Artist Whose Work Was 'Absolutely Mad,'' The Independent, 16 September 2005).

The life of Philippe Bradshaw, like his work, demonstrated an eccentricity more extreme than that of the average English artist and there was perhaps a genuinely dangerous pitch to his recklessness, his f-you panache, which stood out even amongst the loud antics of his peers those fabled YBA's or "Young British Artists". None of this diminishes the genuine shock and loss of his untimely death aged 39, nor the manner of his going, his body having been found in the Seine' (A. Dannatt, 'Philippe Bradshaw: Artist Whose Work Was 'Absolutely Mad,'' The Independent, 16 September 2005).