EXHIBITION FROM NOVEMBER 19 TO THE AUCTION DATE DAILY FROM 11:00 AM TO 7:00 PM (EXCLUDING SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23) BLINDARTE MILAN - VIA PALERMO 11
With this auction season, BLINDARTE is embarking on a green transition. Those who have received our new catalogs will undoubtedly have noticed the substantial reduction in paper consumption. We have decided to undertake a partial digital conversion in favor of respect for the environment, fully in line with the recent statements of the mayor of Bacoli, Josi Gerardo Della Ragione, one of the winners of the GreenCare 2025 Award. We firmly believe that respect for the environment is more than ever a priority in our time, and that everyone must contribute, even in their own small way, including by raising awareness among others, to a more effective and widespread defense of our planet. The catalogs are in fact only complete online, while the paper catalogs have been carefully selected, unfortunately excluding some of the most significant works, which for space reasons will only be visible in the online catalog. This does not diminish the importance of our auction, which in fact boasts a very refined selection of works from some of the most respected private collections among collectors. But it is precisely a decision dictated by the partial green transition, which we hope can be completed in the next auction rounds.
BLINDARTE presents its new Modern and Contemporary Art auction (number 118), scheduled for November 27, 2025, at 6:00 PM, featuring a selection of works of exceptional quality and variety. The collection, drawn from important national and international private collections, includes significant works by artists active in various countries from the early 20th century to the present day. As usual, with some exceptions, the catalog (online at www.blindarte.com) follows a chronological order and encompasses drawings, paintings, sculptures, photography, and installations, offering lots of great interest, rarities, and curiosities. An intense journey through some of the artistic movements that best represent modern and contemporary art, offering the market valuable economic and cultural investment opportunities.
Among the works selected for auction is a significant piece by Jannis Kounellis, created in 2010, which fully embodies the core principles of the artist's research, a leading exponent of Arte Povera. The use of simple, recycled materials, drawn from everyday experience, is elevated to art through a skillful composition imbued with poetic tension. Kounellis meticulously selects and combines elements such as steel, glass, jute, and coal, creating a harmonious synthesis between seemingly contrasting materials. In the work, he arranges green glass bottles on a steel panel, from which two hooks and two steel cables support a jute sack filled with coal. The sculpture, from the Sprovieri Gallery in London, is highly representative of the artist's work and is offered at auction with an estimate of €75,000–100,000.
In the modern art section, noteworthy is an interesting and highly representative drawing by Giorgio Morandi from 1928 ("Still Life", 21.9 x 26.7 cm), offered at auction with an estimate of €30,000-40,000, as well as Giorgio de Chirico's self-portrait on canvas from 1948, estimated at €180,000-240,000. Among the most recurring and significant subjects of his career, the self-portrait occupies a prominent place in the artist's oeuvre. De Chirico explores it in multiple variations and periods, often placing it in surreal and sometimes ironic contexts, in constant dialogue with Renaissance models. Through this type of work, the artist reflects on his own role, plays with the theme of time, and affirms the immortality of his art. De Chirico represents himself as a timeless figure, transfiguring himself into an image suspended between past and present. The ancient dress and the historical landscape project the painting into a timeless dimension, a symbol of that eternity that the artist recognizes in art and that his work, even today, fully embodies.
In the 1948 "Self-Portrait of the Clouds," proposed and published in the "General Catalogue of Works from 1931 to 1950" edited by Claudio Bruni Sakraischik, de Chirico makes particular use of antique clothing to enhance the composition's allure. As the artist himself stated: "Modern clothing is not interesting to paint antique clothing offers many more possibilities for painting and demonstrating what one can do." The same section also features interesting works by Ardengo Soffici (1963's "Rainy Day," estimated €18,000-25,000) and Ottone Rosai, with two paintings: "Figures in Santo Spirito," 1953 (estimate €20,000-26,000) and "Flowers," 1954 (estimate €17,000-21,000), both archived at the Ottone Rosai Archive.ù
Also noteworthy is the presence of a core group of works from a major Neapolitan collection of contemporary abstract art, including historic paintings by Emilio Scanavino ("Celebration of the Circle," an important large-scale oil on canvas from 1971, estimated €18,000-24,000, and "La Colatura," an oil on canvas from 1977, estimated €9,000-12,000), Giulio Turcato ("Desertico," an oil and mixed media on canvas, estimated €7,000-10,000, and "Manet," a tempera on paper, estimated €2,500-3,000), as well as Antonio Corpora ("Approdo nel Mare Ionio," an oil on canvas, estimated €6,000-8,000), Toti Scialoja, Eugenio Carmi, Achille Perilli, Riccardo Licata, and many others. Among the auction's many gems, Emilio Vedova's beautiful 1968 work on paper, registered in the artist's archive and accompanied by a certificate (estimate €11,000-16,000), deserves a special mention. Salvo's delightful and colorful 1982 landscape, a graceful oil on panel, is estimated at €15,000-20,000.
Also not to be missed is Mario Schifano's large 1972 canvas "Paesaggio Notturno" (estimate €50,000-€80,000), a large diptych of nitro enamel on emulsion canvas that perfectly represents the artist's experimentation in the 1960s and 1970s with television and the use of new expressive mediums. Also included in the catalogue is Sergio Lombardo's "Progetto per strisce ondulate extra," a singular work by the artist created in 1965 in which fate determines the orientation of the stripes, as the artist inscribes within the work (estimate €22,000-€26,000). And then there's the 2007 bronze sculpture by Mario Ceroli, estimated at €30,000-40,000, and the "Orange Cover" by Bertozzi & Casoni (estimate €10,000-15,000), an important and emblematic work by the duo created in 2023. The work represents an important summary of their work, in fact it contains within it a shaped orange canvas, with an explicit reference to Lucio Fontana's famous cuts, placed in a case with a clear symbol of invitation to protect art and its history.
Among the highlights of the auction is "Oggi, qui E3, work in situ" by Daniel Buren (estimate on request), a 2008 installation composed of painting on plexiglass and an orange wall, created for the "Oggi, Qui" exhibition at Studio Trisorio in Naples. On that occasion, the walls alternated white squares with fields of five different colors in a vibrant dialogue between form and light. The work emerged as a new, decisive affirmation of the autonomy of color, its irreducibility to any other expressive language. This awareness encapsulates Daniel Buren's poetics: an art that continually questions its own space, its role, and its time, transforming the environment into a living and inseparable part of the work itself.
Other interesting works include David Salle's 2012 painting "Yellow Dawn" and Leandro Erlich's installation "Cadres dorés" (2007), exhibited in 2008 in the "Changing Rooms" show at the Galleria Continua in San Gimignano, and a prime example of the artist's poetic and conceptual language. The installation, composed of two gilded frames, two glass vases, two photographs, and two wooden shelves, creates a sophisticated interplay of perceptions and optical illusions: the photographs placed inside the gilded frames reproduce mirrors in which all the elements of the work are reflected. The viewer thus has the impression of being in front of real mirrors, when in reality they are only observing photographic images, becoming trapped in a game of reality and fiction. The work is presented with an estimate of €20,000-25,000. Also noteworthy is "Dinamica circolare 9BN ø 50" by Marina Apollonio (estimate €18,000/25,000), a work conceived in 1969 and created in 2025.
Among the photographs, noteworthy is a group of works from the portfolio “The Indomitable Spirit 1979-1989. Photographers + Friends United Against AIDS”, created on the occasion of the exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, by: Cindy Sherman (her chromogenic print from 1979-1989 is estimated at €12,000/16,000), Robert Rauschenberg, Close Chuck, Bruce Weber, William Wegman, Jan Groover, Duane Michals and Annette Lemieux. Also in the photography section: Douglas Gordon ("Blind Carol Linley (white eyes), from the Hollywood Blind Stars Series", estimate €6,000/8,000), Nobuyoshi Araki ("Colorscapes" from 1991, estimate €6,000/8,000), Ugo Mulas (whose portfolio "Marcel Duchamp, New York" from 1972 is estimated €12,000/16,000) and finally Mimmo Jodice, the great Neapolitan photographer who recently passed away, of whom a 1995 photograph entitled "Mediterraneo" is included, published on the cover of the book "Mediterranean. Mimmo Jodice. Photographs".
