Kaari Upson (B. 1972)
This Lot is transferred to an offsite warehouse ‘C… Read more
Kaari Upson (B. 1972)

R.R.

Details
Kaari Upson (B. 1972)
R.R.
silicone, pigment and gauze
94 ½ x 72 5/8 x 9 ¼in. (240 x 184.5 x 23.5cm.)
Executed in 2013
Provenance
Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Special notice
This Lot is transferred to an offsite warehouse ‘Cadogan Tate’ at the close of business on the day of the sale. We will give you 2 weeks free storage from the date of the sale and after that point charges apply. All other lots will be held at Christie''s South Kensington until 5pm the fifth Friday after the sale. It will then be transferred to Cadogan Tate.
Sale room notice
Please note that the catalogue image should be orientated 180 degrees clockwise. Please refer to the image online.

Lot Essay

Executed in 2013, R.R. belongs to Kaari Upson’s definitive series of silicone mattresses. Cast from discarded bedding found on the streets of Los Angeles, these works embody the Californian artist’s fascination with the physical traces of human existence. Evolving from her landmark series The Larry Project, based on possessions salvaged from the ruins of a house belonging to her parents’ neighbour, the mattresses were inspired by Upson’s own experiences of being bedridden with illness. ‘I am very interested in their stitching and fabrics that are made to camouflage the bodily fluids of years of living’, she explains. ‘… They are co-opted abject things that I can now map over with painting’s history. They are a conflation of representation, abstraction, abjection and the status quo of painting because they are casts of a real thing, down to every stitch’. Upson relishes in the contingency of her chosen sculptural medium, describing how ‘The second you start one of these silicone works they have to be finished in the same span. Nothing can be stopped. They evade any kind of natural handling. But I like that they exist as durable burdens, in a way’ (K. Upson in conversation with D. Fogle, Flash Art, Vol. 294, January-February 2014).

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