Makoto Aida - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Friday, October 17, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo

  • Catalogue Essay

    In his early career, Aida explored the legacy of native Japanese modernism by using appropriations of art and images. In university, he started painting his Dog series, depicting young, beautiful, naked women who are amputated, leashed with dog chains, and sitting on the stumps of their haunches with her tongue sticking out like a dog. Now at the age of 42, Aida is an icon. Throughout his career, he continued to explore untouchable subject matters. His works are poetic, exotic and disturbing, maintaining an ambiguous link between highlighted Japanese modern culture and the hidden human impulses.
     
    In the present lot, Aida depicts a farmhand holding a Louis Vuitton purse in the air and screaming. ‘This year’s Vuitton is also the best’, squashing in the middle of the field fully planted with Louis Vuitton purses. The exaggerated character, comical style and witty expression sarcastically reflect the modern consumer culture in Japan. Aida’s an artist who is necessary in Japan. He takes on subjects that others veer around. In the early 1990sTakashi Murakami and others explored the ramifications of the Imperial system, World War II and consumer culture, but have since developed signature visual styles and ‘lightened their loads.’ Aida had only gone deeper into that arena and I respect him for staying true to his guns. (Roger McDonald in: No More War, Save Water; Don’t Pollute the Sea by Andrew Maerkle, Art Asia Pacific, Jul/Aug 2008).
     
     

371

Louis Vuitton

2007
Oil and varnish on canvas.
194 x 112 cm. (76 3/8 x 44 1/8 in).
Signed and dated 'Makoto Aida [in Japanese] 2007 on the reverse.

Estimate
£60,000 - 80,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

18 Oct 2008, 7pm
London