BRUSSELS.- Proximus and Christie’s shared additional information on the upcoming online sale “The Proximus Art Collection: Selected Works”, open for bidding from 19 September to 3 October 2024. A selection of 71 works will be offered to benefit future acquisitions keeping the relevance of the collection on edge.

Stefaan De Clerck, Chairman of the Proximus Board of Directors and Proximus Art Collection: “As one of Belgium’s largest corporate art collections, Proximus Art Collection is an important source of inspiration for our employees since the mid-1990s. In a world that is continuously evolving, we want to keep reinventing ourselves and further enhance the collection with refreshing additions. Therefore, we have decided to sell a selection of works, with limited impact on the overall quality of the collection and with the intention to finance new acquisitions.”

Peter van der Graaf, Senior Specialist 20th and 21st Century Art commented “Working for nearly a year with Belgium’s Nr 1 corporate collection was a tremendous pleasure as well as being able to discover the wide variety of works of art from which we were allowed to pull together this small but very fine selection for sale with estimates ranging from €1,000 to €250,000. Proximus and Christie’s are delighted to offer several works without reserve prices, giving younger and new collectors the pleasure to participate and acquire works in this online sale running from 19 September to 3 October.”

International Positions

The selection for sale is highlighted by Robert Longo's Untitled (Black Tube), a vast charcoal drawing executed in 2002, depicting a crashing wave, frozen in motion in black and white of this painstakingly-rendered image. Longo’s wave paintings were either based on the artist’s own photographs, or culled from surf magazines, with later examples created as hybrids, taking elements from both. Untitled (Black Tube) presents the viewer with an overwhelming sense of the force of nature as the entire composition is filled with the crashing of this huge wave - estimate €250,000-350,000.

Andy Warhol’s Flowers is one of the most iconic images he ever produced. Warhol skilfully marries the old and the new; updating the venerable tradition of the floral still life by infusing it with vibrant Pop colours in his silkscreen technique as of 1964. But Flowers also has a darker, more melancholic side. The brief nature of a flower’s life appealed to Warhol’s fascination with death and represented for him a very personal affinity with the temporary nature of life. The auction offers 4 Flowers silkscreens, all executed in 1970. The illustrated work is number197/200 + 56 artist's proofs - estimate €40,000-60,000.

Red Lamps by Roy Lichtenstein depicts a living room space through the artist’s signature cartooned style of bold lines and colours. The main focus is on the patterns and lines which make up the individual forms in the space. Tensions between depth and flatness make works by Lichtenstein such dynamic visualizations despite the commonplace subject matter. Red Lamps was inspired by an advertisement photograph that Lichtenstein enlarged, traced, and reworked into the final image seen here, nr. 37/60 + 14 artist proofs - estimate €70,000-100,000.

Sol LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he preferred to "sculptures"). He called these non-geometric forms Splotches—a playful word he coined that reflects their bright colours and exaggerated forms. The sale offers a medium-size Splotches of 152 x 114 x 75.5cm which was executed in 2005, the year it entered the Proximus collection - estimate €35,000-55,000.

European Positions

Imi Knoebel’s minimalist hybrids of painting and sculpture explore relationships between colour and structure. The artist is interested in seriality, spare geometries, reductive colour, and the use of industrial materials such as Masonite – all to be found in Pure Freude, dated from 2001 – estimate €40,000-60,000.

Another interesting German artistic position is delivered by Katharina Grosse. Rather than using a traditional brush, Grosse employs an industrial spray gun, enabling her to create broad gestures and unique textures that define her abstract style. Untitled painted on canvas in 2011 is different from Grosse’s large installation work – estimate €80,000- 120,000.

Düsseldorf school for Photography: Ruff and Gursky

Thomas Ruff’s Substrate (Substratum) series takes its point of departure in Japanese anime and manga comics, which the artist accessed online, downloaded, and altered using digital image technology. The resulting works can be seen as part of a long history of cameraless photography. Substrat 20III is number three from an edition of five plus two artist's proofs, made in 2003 - estimate €30,000-50,000.

Probably the most renowned photographer of his generation Andreas Gursky manipulates reality in Untitled II from 1993 (3/5) he finds a clear balance between the visual recognizable theme of a sunset and its complete abstraction - estimate €25,000-35,000.

Novice and young collector opportunities

The Dutch Jan Schoonhoven is best known for his relief sculptures made from corrugated cardboard, papier-mâché, toilet rolls, and plywood. His works were mostly monochromatic and purposefully non-expressive and emphasizing on material qualities, like in T80-62, from 1980 – estimate €2,500-3,000.

In his works Ken Lum uses the visual language of public signage, billboards, and mass media, as seen in Leonida Pizzeria from 2003. The artist aims to demystify the tensions and contradictions of living in an increasingly globalising world – estimate €5,000-7,000.

In 1959 Walter Leblanc introduces the ‘torsion’ into his work. This pictorial element, made from cotton threads, plastic or metal allows him to bring rhythm, light, motion and repetition into his reliefs and sculptures. Torsions WL 837 dates from '1977/1978' - estimate €10,000-15,000.

Dirk Braeckman has been experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of the medium of photography for over forty years. G.C.-G.E.-97 dating from 1997 is an example of the artist’s enigmatic and atmospheric black and white images that feature blurred and obscured subjects - estimate €3,000-5,000.