Agus Suwage - Let Loose: Online Auction Hong Kong Thursday, June 29, 2023 | Phillips

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  • One of the most important and influential Indonesian artists working today, Augus Suwage’s Eros Kai Thanatos #1 exemplifies his exceptional skill as a painter as well as his technical approach to memento mori. The present work aptly showcases Suwage’s exploration of the transience of life, imbuing a dark sense of humour and curious cynicism.

     

    Composed of forty individual works on paper that are displayed together as a unique composition, the present work almost acts as an anatomical study – evoking an uncanny darkness and sombre elegance that references Lucien Freud’s two fundamental drives and pleasure principles: Eros and Thanatos (love and death). The effect of applying tobacco juice imparts a subtle eeriness within Eros Kai Thanatos #1. Featuring a barrage of illustrations and visual cues, this marks as one of Suwage’s largest works in scale. 

     

    Much admired for his works, Suwage has participated in countless biennales as well as museum and gallery exhibitions internationally including: the Asia Pacific Biennial, Singapore; the Biennial Contemporary Art of Indonesia; ‘China a retrospective’ at the Jogjakarta Art Museum; and ‘Contemporaneity’, MOCA Shanghai, China.

     
    • Provenance

      Arndt Gallery, Berlin
      Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Gibraltar (acquired from the above by the present owner)

    • Exhibited

      Singapore, NUS Museum, Illuminance: Agus Suwage & Filippo Sciascia, 14 August - 14 November 2010
      Yogyakarta, Langgeng Art Foundation , Illuminance, 29 Jan - 4 Mar 2011
      Berlin, Arndt Gallery, Sip! Indonesian Art Today, 27 April - 1 June 2013

Property from the Tiroche DeLeon Collection

49

Eros Kai Thanatos #1

watercolour and tobacco juice on paper, in 40 parts
sheet 56 x 42 cm. (22 x 16 1/2 in.)
overall 224 x 420 cm. (88 1/4 x 165 3/8 in.)

Executed in 2010.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
HK$120,000 - 250,000 
€14,000-29,200
$15,400-32,100

Contact Specialist

Sophia Choi
Associate Specialist, Head of Online Sales
20th Century & Contemporary Art, Hong Kong
+852 2318 2093
sophiachoi@phillips.com
 

Let Loose: Online Auction

29 June - 6 July 2023