CURATED: Selected by Patrick Parrish II 
11 April 2024
CURATED: Selected by Patrick Parrish II 
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Carl Auböck II

Sculpture (Figure)

Werkstätte Carl Auböck
Austria, c. 1950
brass 5¼ h × 1⅞ dia in (13 × 5 cm)
estimate: $500–700
result: $1,512
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Impressed manufacturer's mark to underside ‘Auböck Made in Austria’.
exhibited: Carl Auböck: 1940 -1980: From the Collection of Clemens Kois, 1 April - 6 May 2022, Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York
literature: Die Kataloge der Werkstätte Carl Auböck: 1925-1975, Auböck, fig. F/19 illustrates similar forms

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I’ve been involved in the magical and expansive world of the Carl Auböck Werkstätte for over 25 years, and my collection has grown from a single brass egg to over five hundred pieces at one point. After decades of being forgotten, Carl Auböck II is now back in the forefront of the historical design discussion. Posthumously he is once again receiving the same level of critical attention he received while he was alive, when the Werkstätte won four Compasso d’Oro awards at the Triennale di Milano in the 1950s. The Auböck Werkstätte designed over 4,500 unique designs throughout its lifespan, during which Carl’s son Carl Auböck III, was also an active contributor. For a father and son to have designed so many unique designs is unheard of, and is an amazing feat in its own right.

I’ll never forget the first time we put some Auböck pieces out for sale at The Modern Show at the Gramercy Park Armory in the late 1990s. A dealer couple from Chicago walked by, saw the pieces prominently showcased in our booth, and came up to me and asked what I was doing. Confused, I said, “Uh, selling some pieces of Auböck”. They frowned and said, “Why are you going to spoil it? This was our secret!”. And it kind of was; this was pre-internet and the Auböck signature is very hard to read, so unless you were a research freak (like we all were), there was no way to know who designed these amazing pieces. I think we sold all of the pieces in our booth and we continued to spoil the secret for years (and will continue to do so!). The MAK Museum will mount a retrospective of the Werkstätte’s oeuvre this May.

Curatorial Alchemy

If asked to select one word to describe Patrick, I would resist and pick two. The first would be curiosity — a fundamental essential, to stimulate inquiry and rigour in all things, both great and small, of any era or region, type or surface. Even the most fleeting survey of this selection for sale is a celebration of innovation and of inspiration — an unerring eye for the unusually exceptional, or perhaps the exceptionally unusual. The chances are, that these are indeed discoveries that you have not yet realised that you needed to make. 

Mentor, would be my second word. If artefacts and objects articulate visual, cultural and historic language, then the fluency of skillful mentorship — to guide, nurture, describe and explain — releases the eloquence of murmuring histories. In this capacity Patrick is that most earnest and sincere of excellent narrators. If ever I had friends, clients or colleagues visiting New York looking for unusual inspiration, there was always the certainty that Patrick’s venues would offer them a glimpse of the hitherto unseen or the unusually seductive, always with the reassurance of the most fascinating story waiting to be told. 

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Mentorship and curiosity, when balanced in equal measure, reveal the precious alchemy of a curator. And it is the duty of the mature curator to discern and detect, to cultivate change, and from there to pioneer, and to share. Innovation is never static, and the Present is already the Future. Fresh dialogs evolve, energies to be nurtured, opportunities to be guided. Renewed and re-orientated, Patrick’s decision to exchange his bricks-and-mortar Tribeca gallery for a new interactive Brooklyn space aligns him towards a new inquisitive future as supportive benefactor, interlocutor and mentor to a fresh yield of talented creators — those established and those rising — and the quest for discovery rejuvenates. 

— Simon Andrews
andrewsartadvisory.com

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