Samuel Levi Jones
airplane mode
Lot Closed
June 7, 03:29:27 AM GMT
Estimate
25,000 - 40,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Samuel Levi Jones
b. 1978
airplane mode
Executed in 2024.
Deconstructed law books and pulped British flag on canvas
30 × 30 × 2 in. (76.2 × 76.2 × 5.1 cm)
Framed: 31 1/4 × 31 1/4 × 3 (79.4 × 79.4 × 7.6 cm)
Please note that while this auction is hosted on Sothebys.com, it is being administered by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and all post-sale matters (inclusive of invoicing and property pickup/shipment) will be handled by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. As such, Sotheby’s will share the contact details for the winning bidders with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago so that they may be in touch directly post-sale.
This online benefit auction has a 10% buyer’s premium, which will be added to the final hammer price of each sold work. The premium allows the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago to retain more of the proceeds of the sale and offset administrative costs.
Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter, Los Angeles
Samuel Levi Jones (b. 1978, Marion, IN; lives in Indianapolis, IN) disassembles art, law, medical, and history books, before combining them into minimalist compositions on the surface of his canvases. In doing so, and by literally deconstructing their “source” texts, the artist challenges structures of power that produce and perpetuate inequities. In the case of airplane mode, the focus is on British imperialism and its profound impact on present-day laws. His work was included in the MCA’s 2020 exhibition Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago and has also been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum; Studio Museum in Harlem; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among other institutions. His work can be found in numerous major collections, including that of the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In 2014, Jones received the Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize presented by the Studio Museum in Harlem.