Harold Ancart (b. 1980)
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more
Harold Ancart (b. 1980)

Untitled

Details
Harold Ancart (b. 1980)
Untitled
oilstick and graphite on paper laid on panel, in artist’s frame
65 ¼ x 52 3/8in. (165.7 x 133cm.)
Executed in 2018
Provenance
Xavier Hufkens, Brussels.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Literature
H. Ancart and O. Vandervliet, Harold Ancart: Soft Places, Brussels 2018, p. 166 (illustrated in colour, p. 123).
Special notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

Lot Essay

‘This is the planet of painting, after all, and Ancart’s space exploration is the exploration of painted space: more than depicting petals and flames, how might a painting itself grow like a flower, ignite like fire, and bring about forms that thrive as life-forms in the otherworld it always is?’
– Chinnie Ding

Divided in two distinct sections, Harold Ancart’s Untitled, 2018, is exuberantly graphic. In the upper black rectangle sits an alluring, almost cartographic oxblood form. Below, vivacious, bold grasses in sunflower yellow, turquoise, cobalt, and orange swell and ripple against a gleaming white background. The impenetrable black pigment of the oil sticks contrasts with the glowing colours, separated by a horizontal line, a formal device favoured by the artist. Frequently, Ancart has been compared to Clyfford Still, who applied vibrant pigments with a palette knife to produce jagged, lightning-like shapes. Ancart’s severe division echoes hard-edge abstraction, and, like his predecessors, he too sees colour as a vital force. In melding figurative and non-representational imagery together, however, Ancart’s approach is more inclusive.
In charting new and thrilling territories, Ancart’s Untitled reveals a window onto an undiscovered land; the excitement of the present work rests in its refusal to be wholly recognizable. This is an exotic planet where half-tones and shadows do not exist, where candy-cane colours threaten to fall into an animated void, where form mutates in a constant state of ‘coalescence and disassembly’ (C. Ding, ‘Harold Ancart’, Artforum, June 2015, n. p.). Ancart’s deft use of colour elegantly balances a torrent of expression and provides a glimpse of a land that feels familiar yet revelatory. In Untitled, an ecstasy of colour is tempered by darkness, a fantasia of intensity and absence.

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