Provenance: Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen. Provenance: Private collection, Denmark. Acquired from the above in 2008.

The American artist David Salle is part of the generation of artists who during the 1980s and onwards, work with figurative, gestural, expressionist painting, at a time when minimalism and conceptual art is firmly entrenched on the international art scene. There is no mistaking Salle's importance for contemporary art. His works are represented in several of the world's most prominent museums such as Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY, The Saatchi Collection and Tate Gallery in London, United Kingdom – to name just a few. In addition to the visual arts, Salle works with photography, writing, stage design, and printmaking. It can be argued that the versatility of his work also appears in the works themselves. Salle works with several methods and techniques, combining imagery from pop art and culture, for example, comic books, art history, and commercial pornography in a single painting. He recontextualizes – or remixes – objects and different stylistic expressions. Salle deliberately plays with illusionistic techniques, which can also be seen in the present work “Direction” from 2007. In this work, he uses mixed media materials and thus breaks with the surface of the canvas. By making the artwork three-dimensional, he allows the work to approach and move into the viewer's space – much like a sculpture. The three-dimensional detail underlines Salles' ability to distort or create disillusion in the viewer’s perception of the artwork, making the work more enticing to revisit.