artnet Auctions Presents Text Me: Art and Language

artnet Auctions is proud to announce Text Me: Art and Language, a curated auction of over 50 works by leading contemporary artists, including Ed Ruscha, Robert Indiana, Deborah Kass, Jenny Holzer, Glenn Ligon, Barbara Kruger, and Richard Prince.

Among the sale's highlights is Glenn Ligon's Condition Report (diptych) (2000), estimated at US$30,000 to 40,000. This terrific, rare two-panel print explores themes of identity, civil rights, and self-empowerment. The phrase "I Am A Man" is based on text from the placards of city sanitation workers, who participated in a civil rights protest during the spring of 1968 in Memphis, TN. When Ligon saw African American photographer Ernest C. Withers's photograph of these strikers, he was inspired by the empowering message on the protesters' signs.

Text Me: Art and Language also includes Ed Ruscha's OOO, estimated at US$8,000 to 12,000. In the 1970s, Ruscha experimented with words as visual puns. In the lithograph OOO, Ruscha renders the letters as drops of water, implying perhaps that the sound of the word might uncover its meaning.

Another highlight of the sale is Deborah Kass's Oy Yo (2011), which is a play on Ruscha's iconic text-based painting OOF (1962). Kass comments on the male-dominated art world by putting her own witty spin on Ruscha's text, rendering her piece in the same colors as the iconic work.

Text Me: Art and Language is live on artnet Auctions from March 12 through 19, 2013, and on view here.

For more information about this sale, please contact artnet Auctions specialists:
Deborah Ripley
Senior Specialist, Prints
+1-212-497-9700 ext. 174
DRipley(at)artnet(dot)com

Rebecca Lax
Senior Specialist, Prints
+1-212-497-9700 ext. 170
RLax(at)artnet(dot)com

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Media Contact:
To receive further information and images, or to arrange interviews, members of the media may contact:
Elizabeth Reina-Longoria or Deirdre Maher
+1-212-675-1800
Elizabeth(at)bluemedium(dot)com or Deirdre(at)bluemedium(dot)com

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