VIENNA.- Rather than still lifes, portraiture, or nudes it is space, time, the interplay of light and dark, questions of finitude, and nothing less than the universe itself that inform the aesthetics of post-1945 Italian and German art. The Dorotheum „Contemporary Art“ auction offers representative works produced by this „Poetry of Reduction“ from artists such as Lucio Fontana, Agostino Bonalumi, Paolo Scheggi, Dadamaino, Giuseppe Uncini, Heinz Mack or Otto Piene.

On this occasion, the main focus of the Fontana selection lies on his sculptural work in terracotta. His 1962 series of spherical glazed ceramic objects includes many that have slit sides that already signal a transition, or show amorphous craters recalling his oil paintings of the same period. One such „Concetto Spaziale“ in gold is estimated to fetch between 200.000 and 300.000 Euro.

Paolo Scheggi, Enrico Castellani, and Agostino Bonalumi regarded Fontana as the father figure of an avant-garde movement in Milan during the nineteen-fifties and –sixties that opposed Tachism. This auction features Scheggi’s „Intersuperficie Curva Rossa“, Castellani’s “Superficie Bianca” or Bonalumi’s Untitled work from 1964 (€300,000–€400,000, €220,000–€340,000, €160,000–€220,000).

Gino de Dominicis’ œuvre revolves around themes such as the immortality of matter, space and time, or the invisible. „Asta in equilibrio“ which will be available at the upcoming auction is representative of de Dominicis’ metaphysical approach, a shining gilt rod apparently suspended above the ground without support as if by magic – or rather, more prosaically, by magnets (€80,000–€120,000).

Gerhard Richter is in a class of his own. Works from several periods of his output enrich the Dorotheum auction selection, including „Abstraktes Bild, 713-,3“ or the similarly abstract, lurid „Green-Blue-Red“ of 1993 (€400,000–€600,000, €200,000–€300,000). Pieces by Heinz Mack, Adolf Luther and a Otto Piene piece, made using fire, show off the work of the proponents of the ZERO movement. A large-format pictorial object of 1971, „Relief with Plexiglas panes“ by Heinz Mack, oscillates between object and immaterial sculpture depending on the angle of the light and the observer’s point of view (€240,000–€280,000).

David Ostrowski, born in 1981 and hence one of the younger German star artists, contributes „F (2012)“ a large-format abstract, to the auction race. Its white canvas has been cut to pieces, pasted back together, and painted over – the expressive gesture in blue spray paint is added from a can (€60,000–€80,000).

Contemporary art from Austria is represented by several works by its most famous proponents, e.g. Maria Lassnig’s oil painting „Selbstporträt als Auto“ (€130,000–€220,000), a sculpture by Erwin Wurm as well as works by Arnulf Rainer, Franz West, and Elke Krystufek.

Immersion and motion
Auction „Modern Art“ on 24th November 2015
Though still indebted to art nouveau in its choice of subject, the 1904 „Bather“ by Frantisek Kupka already points towards modernism in its abstract manner (€100,000–€150,000). Another „Bather“, this one in bronze, was made by Georg Kolbe in 1926 (€60,000–€80,000). Albin Egger-Lienz contributes a 54 x 48 cm “Fragment III” from the first version of the „Der Totentanz von Anno Neun“ (Dance macabre of Annus Nine, 1906/7, €70,000–€120,000).

The upcoming auction also includes several Futurist works. Gino Severini crams his gouache „Sortie Nord-Sud“ with the sense of movement and speed so central to the Futurist movement (€300,000–€400,000). Giacomo Balla’s black and white „Linea di Velocità“ is pure poetry and even his design for a textile pattern appears to vibrate with motion (€60,000–€80,000, €80,000–€120,000). As the artists phrased it in their „Futurist Manifesto“ of 1910: „We claim, (...) that the universal dynamism needs to be expressed as dynamic sensation, (…), that motion and light destroy the materiality of solids.”

All that glitters
Auction „Silver“ on 24th November 2015
The bottle of wine inside this cooler is likely to be the more affordable option: bearing the Paris maker’s mark of Jean Charles Cahier, the Empire Period wine cooler itself is priced at 20.000 to 30.000 Euro. A pair of decorative columns in lapis lazuli and silver were made for Alexander I. in 1808 and bear the maker’s mark of Iwar Wenfeld Buch, (St Petersburg. €50,000–€80,000).