Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by a private European collector
Thence by descent

In 1990, Erik Bulatov participated in arguably one of the most important and unique public art projects associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Commissioned by collector Sylvestre Verger, the project joined Eduardo Chillida, Arman, Daniel Burren, Richard Long, Dennis Oppenheim, Mimmo Paladino, Ilya Kabakov and Grisha Bruskin among other internationally acclaimed artists who were invited to use concrete fragments of the Wall as a support for their artistic expression of liberty.

Constructed in 1961, The Berlin Wall served as a physical and ideological barrier between the German Democratic Republic and Federal Republic of Germany but also to divide the city of Berlin, along with its people, families and connections, becoming one of the most dramatic and painful symbols of the Cold War. Its deconstruction became an act of the fall of the Iron Curtain and excoriation of the opposing political systems existing in East and West Berlin.

Whist many of the participating artists used a variety of media for the project, Bulatov's Nonstop presented a painted image of a 'stop' sign torn in half to reveal a blue circle indicating an open route behind, emphasized by white arrows in the centre of the composition. The work became a metaphor for an ultimate break from social and political boundaries towards freedom and expression.

The offered studies for Nonstop, dated 1988, may be considered early, yet crucially important for understanding Bulatov's creative process and conceptions of the work. While the artist significantly changed the final composition, the use of sweeping arrows conveying a rushed movement forward were preserved by Bulatov in the final version of Nonstop. A figurative representation of the concrete blocks in the studies has associations with the concrete support used in the 1990 project, as well as with the overall notion of the ideological barriers of the Post-War era and those continuing to exist today.

For a reproduction of Nonstop, 1990, see Ruth Addison, Snejana Krasteva ed., Erik Bulatov, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2016, p. 83.

We are grateful to Sergey Popov for assistance in cataloguing the present lot.