Lot 105: MUNTEAN & ROSENBLUM

MUNTEAN & ROSENBLUM B. 1962 UNTITLED (LIFE IS WHATEVER WE CONCEIVE IT TO BE) signed and dated 03 on the reverse pencil and acrylic on paper 40 by 30cm.; 15¾ by 11¾in. Executed in 2003.

Galeria OMR, Mexico City
Sale, Sotheby's London, 22nd June 2007, lot 463, where acquired by the present owner

'We are fascinated by, and investigate, how far you can go with the construction of the gesture of the figure. Because, we think the more artificial it gets, the more moving it is, even though, in the normal sense it is the natural that is the thing that moves you.'
Rosenblum, in conversation with Tate Britain, 2004.

Markus Muntean, from Austria, and Adi Rosenblum, from Israel, currently live and work in London and Vienna and have been in collaboration since 1992. They follow a tradition of figurative painting with imagery reminiscent of characters from Renaissance painting but placed within a contemporary context. Underneath these theatrical scenes they include supposed lines of wisdom taken from various printed materials which, under closer analysis, are vacuous phrases, relevant to the image only if we choose them to be. In constructing their works this way, a certain emotion and aura is projected but with an uncertainty that fulfils what Muntean terms 'precise ambiguity'. Since their first exhibition in Israel in 1996, Muntean & Rosenblum have exhibited extensively and have had solo exhibitions at galleries such as the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2004), Museu do Chiado, Lisbon (2008) and most recently at Maureen Paley, London (2010).