Urban Anthology

For the first time on 28th February 2017, the Artcurial Urban Art department is presenting a sale entirely dedicated to the dispersion of a private collection. Entitled "Urban Anthology", this set of 23 works offers a prospective of the most iconic urban artists from the last decades. 

In order to magnify the precursory of the collector who gathered these works together. Artcurial wished to stage the collection in a place symbolizing creation. The pieces were photographed at the National Dance Center in Pantin, a concrete building dating from the 1970's, when graffiti art appeared in New York. They blend seamlessly with the venue's singular architecture, revealing themselves throughout the visit.

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Stephen SPROUSE
American - 1953 - 2004
"Speaker Stack" - 1998
Screen printing ink and acrylic on canvas
60.04 x 60.04 in.
5 000 - 7 000 €
Origin: The Stephen Sprouse Estate Deitch Projects, New York
Acquired from the latter by the current owner
Exhibition: Deitch Project, New York, Stephen Sprouse, Rock on Mars, January 9 to February 28, 2009

Photo credit : Marc Chatelard for Artcurial 

Stephen Sprouse created the language of fashion freed from the academic in the turbulent atmosphere of the New York art scene at Studio 54, the Mudd Club, and the Factory, merging street culture with the luxury of materials from his fluorescent graffiti and his irreverent punk and pop style. When not designing clothes, he worked on his art, making giant silkscreen paintings and painting pictures on Xerox copies. In May 1984, he met Andy Warhol during the presentation of his collection at the Ritz. Warhol liked Sprouse's sixties-inspired style. From then on, Sprouse became "one of the children" of Warhol. Stephen Sprouse idolized Andy Warhol. He admired his way of subverting ordinary things, such as camouflage, into art, and he did the same thing in his own way, taking elements from the street to sublimate them. In 2001, the couturier Marc Jacobs asked Stephen Sprouse to help him reinvent the tradition of writing on Louis Vuitton's trunks using today's language of graffiti. "Vuitton’s roots are so strong that we have never been afraid to talk about luxury in an offbeat way, nor do we hesitate to surround ourselves with artists, even radicals". Yves Carcelle, CEO of Louis Vuitton. For the first time, the austere Louis Vuitton beige on brown monogram was subverted and modernized.

For more info please visit Artcurial