The Auction by Dominic Lewis

Curated by Juan Bolivar         

12th September to 20th October

Private View 11th September

Think big, think positive, never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throat. Buy low, sell high. Fear? That's the other guy's problem… You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you're up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your Bentley â€¦ Louis Winthorpe (Trading Places, 1983)…

We are all familiar with the 'buy and sell” cries of city traders in films of the 80′s, such as Wall Street and Trading Places. Amidst screams and incessant waving, these brokers resembled desperate men on a sinking ship - rather than financial Svengali, who were able to capture fleeting moments of value in currencies and commodities.
Auction houses, although similar in appearance and purpose, present a different proposition. The raising of hands is far from manic; on the contrary, even a subtle nod or accidental twitch can register with the auctioneer as a show of interest or bid - auction, from the Latin augeo, meaning 'I increase' … 'I augment'.
Dominic Lewis examines the gravitas of historical images (some now in the preserve of Getty Image archives, where the artist procures image licenses which allow him to enter this world) and questions their status as the punctum of our times. For The Auction, Lewis explores this theme through a new body of works that focus on auction houses. From Rembrandt to Van Gogh, from London to New York, the images span from the late 1950′s to the late 1970′s.

Painted alla prima in a monochromatic palette, the works make little editing to the photographic images they derive from, whilst at the same time steering away from discourses on photo-realism. These are not an exercise on soft-focus and pixilation. They place emphasis instead on the application of paint - unmediated - without glazes or filters processing the transference of image to canvas - as if the artist was telling us; 'this is how it happened”, highlighting a sense of nostalgia about these historical events, and acknowledging the tradition of both history painting and the group portrait.

The Auction, 2012, is a typical example. Here we see Sotheby's auction of July 11th, 1957 where Claude Monet's The Blue House at Zaandam(1871) is being sold (as part of the Weinburg collection of French painting). Looking back at the setting - with its drapery and period furniture housing a painting by one of the most romantic artists in history - raises questions about the contemporary art market and the ever changing values of art. The cameras and microphones in this painting touch on painting's relationship to the media, whilst along with the furniture and fashion, help to place us in a specific period. The different characters interrelate on different levels, from auctioneer to warehouse attendant, to the buying public, the journalists and camera men, everyone is involved in the activity of looking and listening.

In another painting Cezanne Auction, 2013, bidders and auctioneers at a Sotheby's auction in New York view millionaire Jacob Goldschmidt's collection of Impressionist painting, including Cezanne's Boy in a Red Waistcoat being shown to the bidders at $222,000.

Lewis draws our attention to the inherent silence of these images. They belong to an era where imagery was scarce and to capture moments like this was rare. In The Auction Lewis removes the cacophony of the bidding floor and freezes gestures and gazes found in these fleeting moments, in doing so we become at one with these events; observing, listening, and watching the world of art go by: estimated values broken, or failing to reach reserves. History being made.
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Dominic Lewis was born in Brighton in 1975. Graduated Chelsea College of Art and Design in 1998 and The Slade School of Fine Art in 2001.
Recent group exhibitions: On Waking (The Octopus, Athens, 2007) and Polar Union (Denman Arts, London, 2010). On 2012 Lewis was selected for the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize 2012.
The Auction: New Works by Dominic Lewis is the fourth exhibition curated by Juan Bolivar at C&C Gallery focusing on debut solo exhibitions by unrepresented London based artists.