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Lot Essay
Please note that this lot, including its title, contains imagery that may be sensitive to certain viewers.
Executed in 2004, shortly after the start of the Iraq War, ALLAH belongs to Gilbert & George’s suite of Thirteen Hooligan Pictures. It features a torn newspaper affixed to a street pole in which the words ‘Bin Laden’ and ‘terror’ are just visible. The subject of a major exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London this October, Gilbert & George are known for their subversive commentaries on contemporary life. Deliberately provocative and frequently controversial, their practice regularly confronts taboo themes surrounding the intersection of religion, violence and warfare. The present work is exemplary of this approach. The conflation of Allah—the Arabic word for God—with references to terrorism speaks to the zeitgeist of fear and paranoia that gripped the world in the wake of the 9⁄11 attacks. Gilbert & George, as ever, are present themselves in the work, their arms raised in poses that mimic both terror and prayer.
For Art’s Sake: Selected Works by Tiqui Atencio and Ago Demirdjian
‘I wanted to understand what it meant to spend one’s life surrounded by and devoted to art’ (Tiqui Atencio)
For Tiqui Atencio and Ago Demirdjian, art functions as a catalyst for conversation: between an artist and the world, and between the public and the society they inhabit. ‘[Artists] are the antennas of the world,’ Tiqui says, ‘picking up on the energy and transforming it into their own vocabulary for us to appreciate, to see, to feel.’ For the Venezuelan-born collector and tastemaker, those conversations began in her early 20s, when her beloved aunt and uncle started taking her to galleries and museums all over the world. Enthralled by the works of art that she saw, Tiqui set out to learn as much as she could, sparking what would become a lifetime endeavour.
The product of these visits, along with countless other conversations, is a dynamic collection that encapsulates the artistic zeitgeist of the past few decades. Following the sale of selected works in New York, Paris and London earlier this year, Christie’s is delighted to present a large and outstanding group from the collection in London this October. Spread across the 20th/21st Century Evening Sale and Post-War & Contemporary Art Day and Online Sales, these works capture Tiqui’s immersion in the British art scene at the turn of the millennium. Among them are exceptional works by Damien Hirst, including Never Mind (1990-1991)—one of the artist’s earliest Medicine Cabinets—and the rare parallelogram-shaped Pharmaceutical Painting Nalorphine (1995). Works by Antony Gormley, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin and others are brought into dialogue with international artists including Franz West, Fischli & Weiss and Sarah Morris. The group also pays tribute to Tiqui’s love of Latin American art, with works by artists such as Carlos Garaicoa, Oscar Murillo and Ernesto Neto.
Tiqui’s highly refined eye has led her to become a sought-after advisor to museums around the world. Together she and Ago have served on influential committees including the International Council of the Tate Gallery in London, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. Tiqui’s passion to communicate the joys she has found in art has also resulted in several critically acclaimed books, including Could Have, Would Have, Should Have (Art/Books, 2016), For Art’s Sake: Inside the Homes of Art Dealers (Rizzoli, 2020), and Inside the Homes of Artists: For Art’s Sake (Rizzoli, 2024).
Executed in 2004, shortly after the start of the Iraq War, ALLAH belongs to Gilbert & George’s suite of Thirteen Hooligan Pictures. It features a torn newspaper affixed to a street pole in which the words ‘Bin Laden’ and ‘terror’ are just visible. The subject of a major exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London this October, Gilbert & George are known for their subversive commentaries on contemporary life. Deliberately provocative and frequently controversial, their practice regularly confronts taboo themes surrounding the intersection of religion, violence and warfare. The present work is exemplary of this approach. The conflation of Allah—the Arabic word for God—with references to terrorism speaks to the zeitgeist of fear and paranoia that gripped the world in the wake of the 9⁄11 attacks. Gilbert & George, as ever, are present themselves in the work, their arms raised in poses that mimic both terror and prayer.
For Art’s Sake: Selected Works by Tiqui Atencio and Ago Demirdjian
‘I wanted to understand what it meant to spend one’s life surrounded by and devoted to art’ (Tiqui Atencio)
For Tiqui Atencio and Ago Demirdjian, art functions as a catalyst for conversation: between an artist and the world, and between the public and the society they inhabit. ‘[Artists] are the antennas of the world,’ Tiqui says, ‘picking up on the energy and transforming it into their own vocabulary for us to appreciate, to see, to feel.’ For the Venezuelan-born collector and tastemaker, those conversations began in her early 20s, when her beloved aunt and uncle started taking her to galleries and museums all over the world. Enthralled by the works of art that she saw, Tiqui set out to learn as much as she could, sparking what would become a lifetime endeavour.
The product of these visits, along with countless other conversations, is a dynamic collection that encapsulates the artistic zeitgeist of the past few decades. Following the sale of selected works in New York, Paris and London earlier this year, Christie’s is delighted to present a large and outstanding group from the collection in London this October. Spread across the 20th/21st Century Evening Sale and Post-War & Contemporary Art Day and Online Sales, these works capture Tiqui’s immersion in the British art scene at the turn of the millennium. Among them are exceptional works by Damien Hirst, including Never Mind (1990-1991)—one of the artist’s earliest Medicine Cabinets—and the rare parallelogram-shaped Pharmaceutical Painting Nalorphine (1995). Works by Antony Gormley, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin and others are brought into dialogue with international artists including Franz West, Fischli & Weiss and Sarah Morris. The group also pays tribute to Tiqui’s love of Latin American art, with works by artists such as Carlos Garaicoa, Oscar Murillo and Ernesto Neto.
Tiqui’s highly refined eye has led her to become a sought-after advisor to museums around the world. Together she and Ago have served on influential committees including the International Council of the Tate Gallery in London, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. Tiqui’s passion to communicate the joys she has found in art has also resulted in several critically acclaimed books, including Could Have, Would Have, Should Have (Art/Books, 2016), For Art’s Sake: Inside the Homes of Art Dealers (Rizzoli, 2020), and Inside the Homes of Artists: For Art’s Sake (Rizzoli, 2024).