Sold for: $4,375

PROVENANCE
Estate of Arthur Erickson, Vancouver
Collection of the Estate and Family of Arthur Erickson, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, April 29, 2010, lot 101
Private Collection, Toronto

Douglas Coupland’s artworks often reflect pop culture trends and the interplay between technology and art. This characteristic of his practice is especially evident in Bill Gates, the Richest Man in the World, which combines the formal qualities of classic Pop Art with a contemporary subject matter. In this piece, two impressions of a single greyscale portrait of Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates are placed side-by-side on a light-blue canvas. The process of physically repeating the image leads to small discrepancies in the two portraits, calling attention to the printing process that produced them.

Coupland’s technique of placing multiples of the same image side by side is reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s influential silkscreen portraits of contemporary celebrities. Warhol’s repeated portraits of figures such as Marylin Monroe and Elvis Prestley considered the connection between mass-consumption and the rising cult of the celebrity in 1960s America. Here, Coupland employs similar techniques to portray Bill Gates as a contemporary icon who represents a new form of celebrity in the digital age.

This piece was made shortly after the publication of Coupland’s 1995 novel Microserfs, which explores the rising popularity of computer programming and the work culture of early tech companies.

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