Conté Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Signed lower right, 'Mario Cespedes' (Bolivian-American, born 1942) and created circa 1985. Matted dimensions: 24 H x 18 W x .25 D inches. Born in Bolivia, Mario Cespedes immigrated...

"#224 – ABANDONED, SEPARATED" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist works directly onto page 224 of a found copy of Ernest ...

"#186 – WOUNDED WERE COMING" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist works directly onto pages of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance novel. The artist selects certain words and phrases from page 186 to isolate as a poem, and then draws, inks, redacts and paints the rest of the page according to the text. The resulting poem reads "The wounded were coming / men that were scared / I felt the rain in my face / It was getting dark." – Hemingway's novel is a doomed romance between a wounded American soldier and an Italian nurse – note the feminine form on the page, with a "dress" or apron that looks skeletal, bloody and rained upon, all at once. From Amy Williams – "My recent work is focused on making treated book pages using a found vintage...

Nam June Paik Untitled, Plate Six from Novecento, 1992 Mixed Media: Color offset lithograph with unique chalk pastel drawing 13 3/10 × 18 inches Hand signed, Edition 104/130 Pencil numbered 104/130, hand signed in pastel chalk on the front Edizioni Carte Segrete, Rome, Italy Excellent condition; held in matting which can be easily removed The matting measures 18" x 21" This was part of a series of works produced for the Nam June Paik retrospective at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 1992, Nam June Paik: Arti Elletroniche. This is one of the editions which bears unique hand coloring with pastel chalk. A comparable work sold at auction in 2015 for US $12,583. (see details below): Nam June Paik Title Novecento Description Nam June PAI K Novecento 1930-1940, 1992 Pastel sur offset en couleurs, épreuve signée et numérotée 104/130 Edizioni Carte Segrete, Rome 23,5 x 39,5 cm EH Oeuvre réalisée a l'occasion de la rétrospective Paik au Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 1992, Nam June Paik: Arti Elletroniche, cinema e Media Verso il XXI Secolo Medium pastel Year of Work 1992 Size Height 9.3 in.; Width 15.6 in. / Height 23.5 cm.; Width 39.5 cm. Misc. Signed Sale of Millon & Associés: Monday, June 22, 2015 [Lot 00090] Design Sold For 11,057 EUR Hammer (12,583 USD) Nam June Paik Biography Nam June Paik was born in 1932 in Seoul. He received a BA in aesthetics from the University of Tokyo in 1956 where he also studied music and art history. After graduating, he studied for a year with composer Thrasybulus Georgiades Georgiades at the University of Munich and for two years with composer Woflgang Fortner at the International Music College in Freiburg. He attended the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt in 1957, when he met Karlheinz Stockhausen, and in 1958, when he met John Cage. Cage, and through him Marcel Duchamp, had a significant influence on Paik as he became a major force in the avant-garde through performances. In Hommage à John Cage (1959), Paik employed audiotape and performance to attack traditional musical instrumentation and compositional practices, splicing together piano playing, screaming, bits of classical music, and sound effects. Realizing that taped sound was not enough, he decided to move into performance, first by introducing performative actions into his audio works. In 1961 Paik performed Simple, Zen for Head and Étude Platonique No. 3, in which he became a volatile figure, thrashing about in unexpected patterns and sudden movements to his signature soundtracks. In 1962 Paik participated in the Fluxus International Festival of the New Music in Weisbaden. Paik's first exhibition, entitled Exposition of Music - Electronic Television, in 1963 at Galerie Parnass at Wuppertal, launched his transition from composer and performance artist to the inventor of a new art form: an engagement with the material site of television as an instrument. In the exhibition, thirteen televisions lay on their backs and sides with their reception altered; for example, Zen for TV (1963) reduced the television picture to a horizontal line and Kuba TV (1963) shrank and expanded the image on the television set according to the changing volume. In 1964 Paik traveled to the US. He quickly settled in New York and became a leading innovator among an emerging generation of artists seeking new modes of artistic expression and distribution. That same year, Paik collaborated with Shuya Abe to create Robot K-456 (1964), a remote controlled robot that played audiotaped speeches by John F. Kennedy and defecated beans in Paik's Robot Opera (1964). In the interactive work Magnet TV (1965), Paik invited viewers to modify the television's output into swerving abstract lines through the movement of a magnet over the TV. In 1967 Paik and frequent collaborator Charlotte Moorman were arrested when Moorman performed Paik's Opera Sextronique (1967), a striptease as she played the cello at the Filmmakers' Cinematheque in New York. Paik's TV Bra for Living Sculpture (1969), which Moorman wore in performances, featured two television tubes...

Between September 2018 and April 2019, I created 100 small paintings consecutively. I endeavored to make nothing else and viewed the project as an opportunity to experiment and solid...

"#56 – BOTH WOUNDED A LITTLE" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist is working directly onto page 56 of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance...

"#71 – THEN IT'S HOPELESS?" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist is working directly onto page 71 of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance novel. The artist selects certain words and phrases from the page to isolate as a poem, and then draws, inks, redacts and paints the rest of the page according to the text of the poem. Here the poem reads: "Then it's hopeless? / But sometimes I cannot hope. / I cannot." Note the poem is outlined in dark red and purple radiating lines, while outside there are lighter violet, blue and white lines. From Amy Williams – "My recent work is focused on making treated book pages using a found vintage...

graphite and gesso on panel

"#227 – I WAS AFRAID" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist works directly onto pages of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance novel. The art...

"#152 – GOOD GIRL" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist is working directly onto page 152 of a found copy of Ernest Heming...

Smooth abstract composition mounted on slate by an unknown artist. Unsigned. No frame.

"#159 – SLEEP" is from Amy Williams' series "A Farewell to Arms" – wherein the artist works directly onto page 159 of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance novel. The artis...