Annette Messager

(French, b. 1943)

Piques

, 1994

steel, fabric, colored pencils, Styrofoam with graphite, pastel and charcoal on paper, cardboard, glass and tape

signed Annette Messager and dated on photo certificate

dimensions variable.

Provenance:

Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1996

Lot Essay:

Along with its sinister contemporary companion the Guillotine, pikes and specifically aristocratic heads impaled on them, have macabrely become as emblematic of the French Revolution as the Marie Antoinette attribution “Let them eat cake.” According to Madame Tussaud’s account, in the days leading up to the storming of the Bastille the citizen resistance approached her uncle Philippe Mathé Curtius, the principal of the wax museum Salon de Cire for use of wax busts of the royals to employ figurative battle standards in the ensuing demonstrations to which he acquiesced. Following the successful overthrow of the ruling monarchy and the complicit nobility these manufactured figure heads became actualized atrocities, a perverse proclamation of victory and a deadly serious didactic against future tyranny or the support thereof. Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Count of Mirabeau, a noted orator and leading dissident voice of the critical mass, retroactively justified the practice as being the product of “centuries of despotism which corrupted the people’s character and, ‘If the anger of the people is terrible it is the cold blood of despotism that is atrocious. Its systematic cruelties do more damage in a day than popular insurrections destroy in a year.” The pikes, in action and manifestation being necessary evils in vanquishing the greater hierarchically evil of the establishment.

In her Piques series, renowned French installation and conceptual artist Annette Messager distills and repurposes these historic revolutionary ideals with her own unique take on these gruesome trophies of rebellious triumph, as if the voice of a Menu Peuple nouveau in opposition to a contemporary set of systemic inequalities. Ingeniously and appropriately coming full circle from the insightful prototypal protest props, the precursors and perhaps inspiration for the grizzly realization of the original effigies, Messager returns to surrogate speared heads to artfully ignite new fires for current causes of the common caste. Her rendition a pleasing contradiction, composed of pole mounted plush stuffed stockings, bright colored buttons and pencils, delicate diagrams and cartography, sensitively disarming in appearance yet disquieting in aggressive conceptual subtext. The nylon hose an especially charged material choice, dually the soft oft fetishized symbols of alluring feminine ornamentation, whether desired or required, the also resonate as the utilitarian low-tech face masking disguise of gunmen, criminal actors and freedom fighters alike. The drawn components are illustrative vignettes of strife and discord, emotive expressive mark making and maps delineating various fragmented sectors of control, subtler rest points that upon exploration still speak truth to power. Perhaps depending on the scale of concern and in turn the imagined uprising, the individual Piques works are presented in variously sized sculptural arsenal arrangements, syncopated rows of rods, leaning at a pitch against the installation wall, evoking memories of the 18th century the shocking source souvenirs displayed in a town square or castle courtyard. Piques, 1994 was included in an exhibition of Messager’s work at Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris and has been in a single private collection since 1996. Larger examples from the series are held in international institutional collections including the Centre Pompidou, the Tate and the Museum of Modern Art.

There is surface dust most noticeably on the fabric elements; various drawings have been reglazed and reattached to the steel rods; slight fraying of the nylon around the torn eye, nose and mouth holes; time related sagging and settling of the stuffed nylon elements; scattered wear and scuffing on the rod elements; otherwise this work appears to be in overall basic good and stable condition.
Height of tallest pike: 99 1/2 inches.

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As the head of Hindman’s Fine Art Department, Mr. Stanfield is instrumental in bringing in major consignments from private collectors, estates, dealers and institutions. He has led the department to dozens of auction records, with a particular focus on Chicago Modernism. Mr. Stanfield has played an integral role in the development of the American & European and Post War & Contemporary Art categories, with the most successful year for the department in company history coming in 2021. He also oversaw a house record for total sales for a week of Fine Art auctions in May 2022. Mr. Stanfield is also the lead auctioneer for the Fine Art sales at Hindman. Prior to returning to Hindman in 2019, he was at Toomey & Co. for eight years, where he oversaw important collections including the estate of Candice B. Groot, the collection of Governor Jim Thompson, and the estate of Robert E. Beck. Mr. Stanfield earned a BA from the University of Kansas where he studied Art History.

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SVP, Head of Department, Post War and Contemporary Art

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Mr. Wirsum joined the firm in 2007 as a Fine Art registrar and became a department specialist in 2013, with a focus on Post War and Contemporary art. Through his vision, the department has achieved record breaking prices. Mr. Wirsum evaluates and appraises well over 5,000 works of art each year, collaborating with leading international committees and experts on authentication. Prior to joining Freeman's, Mr. Wirsum served as an assistant director and conservator at the Chicago Conservation Center. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a practicing painter with gallery representation.

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Post War and Contemporary Art

Piques

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