Nikolas Gambaroff (b. 1979)
Untitled
signed and dated 'N. Gambaroff 2011' (on the reverse)
paper collage on ultraboard
23⅞ x 11½in. (60.6 x 29.1cm.)
Executed in 2011

Provenance:
Nicole Klagsbrun, New York.
Private Collection, London.

Exhibited:
New York, Nicole Klagsbrun, Robert Barry, Peer Bode, Nikolas Gambaroff, Raymond Hains, Ryan Sullivan, 2011.
Karlsruhe, ZKM Museum für Neue Kunst & Medienmuseum, ART and PRESS: Kunst. Wahrheit. Wirklichkeit, 2012-2013 (illustrated in colour, p. 114).

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Specialist Notes:

‘In my work I try to dissect, deconstruct, and re-evaluate (mainly within the limits of the activity painting) the customs, expectations and myths that painting as part of our visual culture brings along’ – Nikolas Gambaroff

German contemporary artist Nikolas Gambaroff’s material of choice in his investigations of the limitations of painting is everyday newspaper. The artist creates his distinctive painted collages by tearing and layering newspaper and magazine pages into repeated patterns that, while distinctly evocative of modern art, remain stubbornly removed from its legacy in their very materiality. From these stylized tears and layers emerges a pattern which evokes text and yet is illegible, a quality exacerbated by the artist’s actions of manipulating the initial material which carried text in the first instance. The content is still evident but fragmented, and the collision of ads and news is no more jarring than in any paper's daily spread. In so doing, the artist creates a captivating tension between high and low culture.

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