Andy Warhol - Warhol in China Hong Kong Saturday, May 27, 2017 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Literature

    Nicholas Chambers, Michael Frahm and Tony Godfrey, eds., Warhol in China, Germany, 2014, pp. 55, 298 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    “Arrived in Hong Kong, evening. It was hot and muggy, Florida-type weather. Twelve hours’ difference in time, so you didn’t have to change your watch, which was kind of great.”
    Andy Warhol, quoted in Pat Hackett, ed., The Andy Warhol Diaries, United States of America, 2014, p. 474

    Between October 27 to 30, 1982—and a brief stopover on November 6 on his way back to New York—Andy Warhol’s diary entries chronicled a short succession of fleeting but dazzling memories of Hong Kong in the early eighties: “Rolls-Royce and limousines…Mandarin Oriental…Miss America types…private boat…Disco-Disco…exclusive.” The trip, a fantastical smorgasbord of memories filled with socialites and the elite of Hong Kong, as well as excursions around the city, was initiated by Jeffrey Deitch—then part of the art advisory and art finance department at Citibank. Deitch specifically invited Warhol to be part of the inaugural event for Alfred Siu’s exclusive I-Club, a members-only club previously built into the Bank of America tower that featured works by major international artists. What ensued was a four day jaunt around Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, where Warhol’s entourage was privy to an all-encompassing experience of the city: private clubs, hotels, tailors, temples, fortune tellers, discotheques, bars, gyms, manor houses.

    “I had a suite overlooking the harbour, it was very beautiful…”
    Andy Warhol, quoted in Pat Hackett, ed., The Andy Warhol Diaries, United States of America, 2014, p. 475

    Warhol’s photographs of Hong Kong reflect the frenzied energy that permeates his diary accounts of Hong Kong; accounts which were feverishly written in punctuated, excited short bursts. Some shots are deliberately skewed or cropped: of street signs (Lot 34, 37, 39), of buildings (Lot 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43)—as if these scenes were frantically snapped in a hurried ecstasy of energy and wonder. In this way, various renowned locations are eschewed of their fame in a classic Warhol twist: the Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry pier (Lot 35, 36 , 39), Jardine House (Lot 36), the Peninsula Hotel (Lot 37, 39), the Cenotaph (Lot 39), the Bank of China tower (Lot 40), Furama Hotel (Lot 43), and glimpses of the famous Stone Manor (Lot 43, 44). More interestingly, Warhol further obscures and distorts such landmarks as the Mandarin Oriental, where he stayed in Room 1801, by photographing views from its interior looking out onto Hong Kong (Lot 39, 43), and similarly for the I-Club (Lot 40), as well as from within the Stone Manor (Lot 40, 43, 44). These unexpected angles and views from within various sites offer us an intimate look into Warhol as the voyeur, in turn transforming us into the viewer from within his pieces.

    During his visit to Hong Kong, Warhol kept a South China Morning Post newspaper clipping featuring him, which quoted the artist as having said, “The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that have never met.” In many ways this perhaps deliberately perplexing axiom of sorts is fitting in the case of the present collection of Warhol’s travels in Hong Kong and Beijing: distanced photographer and model, building, and viewer are all opposites that attract but converge in the present works, permitting us an enthralling look into the great Andy Warhol behind his Chinon lens.

  • Artist Biography

    Andy Warhol

    American • 1928 - 1987

    Andy Warhol was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement in the U.S. in the 1960s. Following an early career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol achieved fame with his revolutionary series of silkscreened prints and paintings of familiar objects, such as Campbell's soup tins, and celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe. Obsessed with popular culture, celebrity and advertising, Warhol created his slick, seemingly mass-produced images of everyday subject matter from his famed Factory studio in New York City. His use of mechanical methods of reproduction, notably the commercial technique of silk screening, wholly revolutionized art-making.

    Working as an artist, but also director and producer, Warhol produced a number of avant-garde films in addition to managing the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founding Interview magazine. A central figure in the New York art scene until his untimely death in 1987, Warhol was notably also a mentor to such artists as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

     

    View More Works

29

Chinese Bellhop

1982 - 1987
Initialled ‘T.J.H.’ by Timothy J. Hunt of the Andy Warhol Foundation in pencil, estate copyright credit reproduction limitation and date stamps on the verso.
Four stitched gelatin silver prints
Image: 68.8 x 53 cm. (27 1/8 x 20 7/8 in.)
Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity signed in ink by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Estimate
HK$80,000 - 120,000 
€9,800-14,700
$10,300-15,400

Sold for HK$187,500

Contact Specialist
Charlotte Raybaud
Head of Sale
+852 2318 2026

General Enquiries
+852 2318 2000

Warhol in China

Hong Kong Auction 28 May