Items Similar to Little four banger
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 4
Clint NeufeldLittle four banger2022
2022
About the Item
The first work of Clint Neufeld I ever saw was a hulking engine rendered in pink and lime green ceramic, so large that it hung from its own crane. It was called Screaming Jimmy, the first time we met in that field I knew you were the one and it occupied a corner of his studio. It had that instant charisma that works of art can have, whereby your eyes are drawn to it and your mind immediately starts trying to process what it is seeing.
I was right away struck by the balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. I looked and I thought, “That’s an engine, presumably of a tractor or a truck it’s so big”. Of course, it was not an engine. Like Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”—because it’s a painting of a pipe—Neufeld’s engine was an imitation of an engine, something not usually held to be attractive, but here, taken out of the grimy shop, cleaned, replicated, coloured and glazed, made absolutely beautiful, shockingly so.
It brought back a powerful memory: once, while travelling in Iran, I came upon an enormous power station on the shore of the Caspian Sea—a colossal complex, old and worn, purely utilitarian, endlessly fed cheap Iranian oil—and I thought, “Wow! What a thing of beauty!” In the way time and moisture had decided on how the metal parts were mottled with rust and how the painted parts were chipped and faded, in the way the complex was purely meant to function and not appear, it looked not industrial but organic, a living creature nestled along a coastline, surprised at the sight of a Canadian backpacker.
In a same way, I reacted to Neufeld’s work, liking the Duchampesque statement This is art of it and the open dialogue it started in my mind. Neufeld’s method is a clear one, repeated and varied for the last few years. A putatively ugly thing, traditionally masculine and utilitarian, is rendered in ceramic, an explicitly beautiful and delicate material. Not only that: glazed in soft, pastel colours. More than that: glazed and decorated with floral motifs. Sometimes even more: the flowers are made explicit—they grow out of or around the engine parts. Then the whole is removed from its habitual outside context and brought inside, into the domestic arena, where it might be set on a sofa or a tray or a glass dish, borrowings or, in some cases, imitations of cozy comfort.
What to make of this conflation of the brutish and the refined? The hard and the soft? The useful and the useless?
To each viewer his or her path. I seek no answers, I just go along in that tippy balance between what I know and what I don’t, between the ugly and the beautiful, the masculine and the feminine, the functional and the not, the outer and the inner. In the end, that’s what I am, a tippy balance, a hope that I am both engine and flower, useful and not, as alive as a power station.
- Creator:Clint Neufeld (1975, Canadian)
- Creation Year:2022
- Dimensions:Height: 6 in (15.24 cm)Width: 6 in (15.24 cm)Depth: 6 in (15.24 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Montreal, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU47611040152
About the Seller
5.0
Vetted Seller
These experienced sellers undergo a comprehensive evaluation by our team of in-house experts.
Established in 1996
1stDibs seller since 2014
96 sales on 1stDibs
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Montreal, Canada
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 7 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- Three In the TreeBy Clint NeufeldLocated in Montreal, QuebecClint Neufeld was born and raised in small town Saskatchewan. Prior to pursuing a career in art, Neufeld spent three years with the Canadian military, which included a deployment to ...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsPorcelain
- Rosy ToploaderBy Clint NeufeldLocated in Montreal, QuebecClint Neufeld was born and raised in small town Saskatchewan. Prior to pursuing a career in art, Neufeld spent three years with the Canadian military, which included a deployment to ...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsPorcelain
- Last SipBy Ginette LegareLocated in Montreal, QuebecGinette Legaré’s career has largely been concerned with the sensorial qualities of the materiality of everyday objects such as cups, ladles, hand drills, funnels, and faucets. These ...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsMetal
- Broken flower No 5Located in Montreal, QuebecDana Widawski’s ceramic works can be compared to the form of wild thinking. She transcends genre boundaries and one-sided classifications by repeatedly creating abrupt and unforeseen...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsPorcelain
- Cancel Culture No 4Located in Montreal, QuebecDana Widawski’s ceramic works can be compared to the form of wild thinking. She transcends genre boundaries and one-sided classifications by repeatedly creating abrupt and unforeseen...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsPorcelain, Ceramic
- Shit happensLocated in Montreal, QuebecDana Widawski’s ceramic works can be compared to the form of wild thinking. She transcends genre boundaries and one-sided classifications by repeatedly creating abrupt and unforeseen...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsCeramic, Porcelain
You May Also Like
- "Vestido de Oro I (Gold Dress I)" terracotta gold glaze dress form sculptureBy Xawery WolskiLocated in Phoenix, AZXawery Wolski Vestido de Oro I (Gold Dress I), 2015 Terracotta, gold glaze 67" x 60" x 3" Polish-born sculptor Xawery Wolski works in a variety of materials: bronze, terracotta, w...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsGold
- "Witness" (Desert Pronghorn)Located in Salt Lake City, UT"Witness (Dessert Pronghorn)" by Heidi Moller Somsen, ceramic, 14 1/2 X 20 in., $2,000. The desert pronghorn are fascinating creatures, and the only large, plant-eating mammal speci...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsCeramic
- «Waited for someone» Ceramic Sculpture by O. F. HvidstenBy Ole Fredrik HvidstenLocated in Oslo, NOSigned and dated. «Waited for someone, for something, for anything, for too long» was part of O. F. Hvidsten's first solo-exhibition «This will n...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsCeramic, Clay
- «It was you that put your foot into my habitat» Ceramic Sculpture by HvidstenBy Ole Fredrik HvidstenLocated in Oslo, NOSigned and dated. «It was you that put your foot into my habitat» was part of O. F. Hvidsten's first solo-exhibition «This will never pass». The works com...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsCeramic
- Venus II (tile relief)By Witalij FreseLocated in München, BY"Venus II (tile relief)" (2022) is part of the exhibition "Connect and Disconnect", running from 20 May - 15 July 2022 at HELDENREIZER Contemporary. Witalij Frese Venus II (tile relief), 2020 Glazed earthenware Each tile circa 10...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsCeramic
- EmpfangenBy Witalij FreseLocated in München, BY"Empfangen" (2022) is part of the exhibition "Connect and Disconnect", running from 20 May - 15 July 2022 at HELDENREIZER Contemporary. Visit the exhibition page on our website to l...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsCeramic
Recently Viewed
View AllMore Ways To Browse
As Four
Four Sculptures
Yayoi Kusama Painting
Playful Outdoor
Cubist Bronze Sculpture
Beadwork Art
Banksy Resin
Pumpkin Box
Women Stone Sculpture
Teddy And The Bear
Sculpture Dollar
Yayoi Kusama Original
Small Female Bronze Sculpture
Eternity Sculpture
Life Size Child Sculpture
Gold Speed
Toys Teddy Bears
Bronze Sculpture Of A Bull