Aspen Art Museum

Becoming steel (pegasus)

2023

Acrylic grease pencil, and oil on canvas

72 × 72 in   |   182.9 × 182.89 cm

Kindly donated by Robert Nava and Pace Gallery, New York

Estimate: $150,000–$200,000

The following text appears in the Aspen Art Museum Summer Magazine 2024

Angels, dragons and other fantastic beasts dominate the paintings of Robert Nava. The roughly rendered creatures are inspired by a diverse range of sources, from prehistoric cave art to cartoons, from philosophy and religion to video games. Combining acrylic with grease pencil and spray paint, Nava’s naive, playful images exude a raw energy. What the absurdity and cartoonlike violence lack in horror, they make up for with comedy. There is a firm nod toward Jean-Michel Basquiat, and maybe even Jean Dubuffet, and without doubt the work evokes the “‘Bad’ Painting” named by critic and curator Marcia Tucker back in the late 1970s. In an interview in 2019, cited by Owen Duffy writing in 2022 for Art Review, the artist Katherine Bradford makes the bold suggestion that Nava “paints figures almost the way Cy Twombly would have, had he painted figures.”

Discussing Nava’s determination to “deskill,” Duffy himself writes, “He renders three-dimensional objects with a distorted sense of flatness and messy linework.” But, of course, as with all those that went before him, the naivety is knowing, for as Nava himself explained in an interview with émergent magazine, “there’s just a lot more room in what people would call the ‘incorrect’ ways of painting.”

Born in East Chicago, Nava lives in Brooklyn. In 2011, he graduated from Yale School of Art, New Haven, with an MFA in painting. His work is held in the collections of a significant number of museums around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

About the Artist

Robert Nava earned a BFA in Fine Art from Indiana University in 2008 as well as an MFA in Painting from Yale University in 2011. His practice centers on large-scale paintings and works on paper that portray whimsical creatures, rendered through gestural markings. Finding inspiration in the art of the distant past, from Medieval Christian imagery to Mayan and Sumerian art, as well as popular contemporary sources such as animation, Nava creates compositions that are carefully considered yet marked by a sense of naivete and spontaneity.

His art has been exhibited in various solo exhibitions both domestically and abroad, including Robert Nava: STAND, The Watermill Center, New York (2022); Bloodsport, Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); Robert Nava: Thunderbolt Disco, Pace Gallery, London (2022); Robert Nava, Pace Palm Beach (2021); Robert Nava: Angels, Vito Schnabel Gallery, New York (2021); and Robert Nava: Sorry We’re Closed in Brussels, Belgium (2020). Nava’s work is held in public collections worldwide including the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Musée d'Art Modern, Paris; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, California; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; and Perez Art Museum, Miami Florida, among others.

How to Bid

All lots will be on view at the Aspen Art Museum from July 17 through August 1.

Bidding on this work takes place at the ArtCrush gala on Friday, August 2nd, at 8pm MT. Absentee and telephone bidding available.

Please contact bid@aspenartmuseum.org for more information, including a condition report.

In the Live Auction, there is no Buyer’s Premium and the difference between the mid-estimate and the winning bid is a tax deductible donation to the museum.

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