Jonathan Monk
Unused Test Print Porsche RH, 2016
Poster print with newspaper and accompanying magazine published in conjunction with the exhibition, The Life Sized Black (a Porsche for RH), Blondeau & Cie, Geneva, Switzerland. The newspaper is SIGNED and the print is hand titled. Includes a SIGNED signature label.
10h x 13w in
JOM012
$ 350
“Some time ago I accidentally acquired a small book by Richard Hamilton. It was to become part of a series of accidental purchases, but I didn't know that at the time. The 911 handbook was written by Richard Hamilton but not the English artist of the same name.
I started to research the other Richard Hamilton's writings and as is often the case my journey took another twist and a turn until it stopped dead at the website of the auction house Bonhams. They listed a 1973 Porsche 911S 2.4-Litre Coupé once owned by Richard Hamilton... but which Richard Hamilton? - all very mysterious...
I read further and it was a car once owned by the artist RH. He used it to drive to and from his studio and jaunts into London and to his summer house in Spain and his numerous galleries on the continent.
The car had been very carefully looked after and only ever serviced by one specific local Porsche dealership – it was in perfect order for a forty year-old car and it sold accordingly for € 541,526 including buyer’s premium. I am not sure if it was sold as the perfect vintage Porsche 911 or as a car once owned by one of Britain's most important artists... - I guess we'll never know.
I decided to continue the journey and complete the circuit by making images of the car – it was important for me to make life-sized images... like a real car. But the only picture available was via Bonhams’ website – enlarging, measuring and cropping created an almost completely abstract version of the car – each of the ten photographs containing 800 square pixels… Printed on glossy paper and framed in polished aluminium to create a slowed down version of the original – a blocky rendering of its beautiful curves.”_____Jonathan Monk
The Life Sized Black (a Porsche for RH) I-X Newspaper shows the 10 images that appear within the accompanying magazine. Each pixel has been dramatically simplified and broken down to four numbers. These numbers represent the colours required for printing within the CMYK color system.______Jonathan Monk
In The Life Sized Black (a Porsche for RH), Monk captures with his trademark irony the connection between Richard Hamilton and his iconic car. Signature to Monk's practice is the demystification or derision of the artist figure seen here with the contrast between the immediate accessibility of the image and its ungraspable deconstruction.