Details
Damian Loeb (b. 1970)
Can't You Take a Joke
signed, titled and dated '"CAN'T YOU TAKE A JOKE" Damian Loeb 12/04' (on the reverse)
oil on linen
96⅛ x 107⅞in. (244 x 274cm.)
Painted in 2004
Provenance
Private Collection, London.
Private Collection, United Kingdom.
Exhibited
Ridgefield, Connecticut, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Damian Loeb: The Constructed Image, 1996-2005, 2006 (illustrated in colour on the exhibition reception invitation).
Special notice
VAT rate of 20% is payable on hammer price and buyer's premium
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Lot Essay

Executed in 2004, Can’t You Take A Joke is a monumental work from Damian Loeb’s virtuosic appropriation practice. Rejecting the term ‘photorealism’, the artist digitally manipulates photographic and cinematic sources, altering brightness and tone before reproducing the image in hyper-real painterly detail. In doing so, he aims to shed light on the relationship between memory and second-hand imagery in a media-saturated world. Can’t You Take A Joke is based on a scene from John Carpenter’s 1978 film Halloween. Like many of Loeb’s sources, it represents a fleeting, non-descript moment that few would associate with the movie. The work was included in the artist’s solo show at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 2006.
Post Lot Text
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