PATRICK LOWRY
Auction House
Friday 21 May – Saturday 5 June. 10:30 – 5pm Fri/Sat or by appointment
Final live sale, Saturday 5 June 6-8pm
ONLINE AUCTION NOW LIVE, VIEW THE WORK HERE
View the sale catalogue HERE
Auction House is delighted to announce its first post-lockdown exhibition of 2021, Auction House (2021) by Cornish based contemporary artist Patrick Lowry.
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Things are not always as they seem...
For Auction House (2021), Lowry was drawn to the building’s original function as a sale room built in 1880.
Prompted by this he has reflected on artworks of significance to him since his Art foundation studies, selecting ten 20th/21st Century artists, a piece of whose work he would replicate to form a collection of facsimiles to be sold to the highest bidder. Each piece forms part of the complete work, underpinned by the performative elements of participants in viewing, bidding, buying and owning one tenth of the art work.
Lowry invites people to step inside the processes driving the international art world, where mind boggling sums of money change hands and artist’s reputations are made or broken. He asks participants to consider the purpose and value of this activity in relation to the original intentions of the artists who first made the works he has replicated.
Auction House will give people an opportunity to decide where they fit in this performance.
They will be able to peruse the sale catalogue, online or at the exhibition, and make bids, vying with others to own one of the ten works in the exhibition. Lowry hopes bidding will be fierce!
The catalogue contains further details on the works and artists, and includes a short essay and a Q&A with Patrick Lowry by Sarah Bowler.
Money raised through the auction will be shared between two charities, Sight Savers and Water Aid, long-standing organisations the artist has previously supported.
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Patrick Lowry is an artist who revels in confounding our expectations. We approach his work believing it is one thing, only to find it is something else, a rendering of surfaces mimicking materials and objects. He uses the art of illusion to create exact replicas of specific objects, often chosen as symbols of political subterfuge or commercial manipulation; at their core is the message, ‘things are not always as they seem’.
Having mastered the art of rendering one material in another, he uses his extensive research and making skills to expose neoliberal, capital, and colonial currents in all aspects of life within developed economies. Presenting full-scale replicas of highly valued objects: houses, cars, military drones, selected 20th Century artworks, he asks why these things are valued in society, by whom and for what purpose.
Previous work; Crushing the Tate 2012, an installation at BIKINI Espace d'Art Contemporain, Lyon - a very small gallery - consisted of a four-fifths scale replica of one of the floors of the Herzog & De Meuron designed staircase in Tate Modern. For American Dream 2013 at The Exchange, Penzance, Lowry presented a full-sized replica of the façade and garden of a 1950s American suburban home complete with a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, and Quantitative Easing 2014, at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury, London, consisted of a replica Heidelberg printing press and 'counterfeit' euros. All works with obvious overlaps commenting on art ecology, possession, desire, money markets, forgeries, fakes and counterfeits.
We will be following Government C-19 guidelines and limiting numbers within the exhibition space at any one time. Although not essential, booking is recommended to help limit numbers. Please wear a mask and follow social distancing rules.