Nearly
150 Lots Expected to Realise in Excess of Approximately
HKD
137 Million / USD 17.6 Million
Evening
Sale: 25 November, 6pm HKT
Day
Sale: 26 November, 10:30am HKT
HONG KONG – 12 November 2018 – Phillips will present two sales of 20th Century & Contemporary Art
& Design this Autumn in Hong Kong – an Evening Sale on 25 November and an inaugural
Day Sale on 26 November. The Day Sale
is the first additional sale in this category since Phillips held its initial Evening
Sale in Hong Kong in November 2016. Both sales will offer nearly 150 lots, with
a total low estimate of approximately HKD 137 million / USD 17.6 million.
Jonathan Crockett, Deputy Chairman and Head of 20th Century
& Contemporary Art, Asia: “Phillips’ innovative and selective curatorial approach to
our auction offering has resonated precisely with our growing client base in
Asia, leading to our highest ever auction results with numerous artist records
achieved in Spring 2018. This season again we have placed a strong emphasis on
gathering the best selection across our Evening and Day Sales, with a wide
variety of artists and categories, some of which have never been presented
before at auction in the region. From
Chagall’s delicate 1929 gouache ‘Le violoniste
bleu’,
Wifredo Lam’s monumental 1945 painting ‘Sur les Traces (also known as
Transformation)’, to
high-in-demand artists such as Banksy and KAWS, our Evening Sale spans nearly
nine decades of art history. Additionally, for the first time we will hold a
tightly curated Day Sale, including prominent works by Takashi Murakami, Yayoi
Kusama, George Condo, Zao Wou-Ki, and the largest selection of modern design
furniture presented thus far at auction in Asia.”
EVENING SALE – 25 NOVEMBER
Download
Evening Sale catalogue
Sandy Ma, Head of Evening Sale, 20th Century & Contemporary Art: “Following the success of
our last 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale in May,
our international team of
experts have once again amassed an outstanding selection of modern and
contemporary works of art with desirable provenance from around the world,
responding to current collecting trends and tastes. We are particularly
honoured to be offering a rare set of three pumpkin paintings by popular
contemporary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama – ‘Pumpkin (three works)’ executed in
2002, representing a unique opportunity to collect a complete trio of the
artist’s most iconic subject, each in different colours.”
Modern Art
The leading
highlight of the Evening Sale is Cuban-Chinese artist Wifredo Lam’s
representative work, Sur les Traces. Painted
in 1945 at the height of the artist’s career, this work exemplifies the
transculturation of the artist’s practice, integrating Afro-Cuban and Chinese
elements with imaginative and far-ranging freedom. Following
the 2016 Wifredo Lam travelling exhibition to Mainland China, the appearance of
Sur les Traces at auction serves as a rare opportunity to acquire one of
the artist’s most important works from the period and illustrates the growing
popularity of his work in Asia. (See
separate press
release)
After establishing Richard Lin’s artist record in Hong Kong last May,
Phillips is delighted to offer for the first time at auction yet another
exquisite work by Lin – Painting Relief.
Created at the early apex of the artist’s career in 1963, this large scale
piece (101.6 x 111.8 cm) is an
outstanding constituent of the artist’s iconic White
Series. Composed of
delicately coloured oblongs of aluminium and perspex, Lin balances fields of
monotone abstraction which seem to float independently of one another,
delineated by acute variations in tone.
Painted upon Yun Gee’s return to New York in 1939,
Three Graces offers an oneiric narrative, laden
with symbols and allusions, making it one of the most unique works by the
artist. Like the Renaissance artists who revived the theme of the three graces,
Yun Gee portrays them as an embodiment of female beauty and charm. In the
present lot, the three muses stand at the centre of the composition in a
fantastical landscape setting, and are surrounded by fanciful creatures. Yun Gee
occupied a unique position in the history of Chinese art – he was an early
voice in the creation of a global language of modernism, and a pioneer in the
establishment of a unique aesthetic.
Marc
Chagall’s Le violoniste bleu comes from a private French
collector. The titular musician sits while playing, utterly absorbed in his
music, eyes closed in dream-like concentration. Painted in 1929, Le
violoniste bleu
captures the atmosphere of the Happy
Twenties, coinciding with a time of
prosperity for Chagall and his wife Bella. Through the themes of music and
colour, Chagall captures an emotional
connection to his motherland and his
past through the figure of the violinist and the moon, while
looking into the future ahead of him, represented by
the Parisian symbol of the “bouquiniste”, an icon of his
new city. This
picture was formerly in the collection of the wife of the prominent French art
critic Maurice Raynal, who was considered to be an important standard-bearer
for Cubism.
Contemporary Art
As a rare
triptych of three exemplary versions of the artist’s most iconic subject, Yayoi
Kusama’s Pumpkin (three works) is a
powerful culmination of the artist’s creative achievements. Painted in 2002,
these three unique canvases represent not only a lifetime dedicated to this
charismatic and highly personal motif, but also express Kusama’s accomplished
technical ability and formal innovations within the realm of painting. Carving
out an idiosyncratic space between abstraction, and figuration – evincing
profound links to the repetitive symbolism of Pop Art, the hypnotic illusions
of Op Art, and the formal project of Minimalism – Pumpkin (three works) reifies Kusama as an influential figure
within the history of contemporary art, whilst ultimately pertaining to a
vision that is unequivocally hers and hers alone.
Takashi
Murakami’s spectacular painting executed in 2015, Untitled, bridges traditional Japanese-style nihon-ga
painting and the worlds of contemporary art, animation,
and popular culture. Murakami is described as ‘the king of the colourful
psychedelic style’ as he has coined ‘Superflat’. His diverse sources of
inspiration give way to mixing playful vibrant characters resembling cartoons,
with darker, more menacing subtexts. Untitled
offers a coveted and painstakingly detailed painting
exemplary of the multifaceted work that has earned Murakami the revered status
of Contemporary pop art icon.
Phillips holds many of world auction records for KAWS, including
the record for a sculpture by the artist. The present monumental sculpture, COMPANION (RESTING PLACE), measures 152.4 x 160 x 203 cm. Provocatively
half-dissected and rendered in a sophisticated grey-scale palette, this work monumentalises
the beloved character created by Brian Donnelly, one of the most popular
artists of his generation, who goes by the pseudonym KAWS. Implementing KAWS’s signature logos, the “X”
replaces one of the eyes, the protruding crossbones, though bisected, signal an
ear or hair, while the playfully oversized features provide comedic relief to
the underlying tones of existentialism. This work is one of the only few
life-size grey sculptures completed during the final season of the artist’s
brand OriginalFake.
Two works by the highly sought-after
artist Banksy will also be offered. Both pictures on cardboard share the same
title, Abe Lincoln and are from a
series of only three. They were created in 2008 when Banksy visited New
Orleans, three years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. There, Banksy
used the still-tattered urban fabric of New Orleans as an eloquent backdrop for
his critiques of the situation.
INAUGURAL DAY SALE – 26
NOVEMBER
Phillips’ first Day Sale of this category in
Asia will present over 80 lots of modern and contemporary Western and Asian works
of art, including editions and photographs.
The sale will also present 36 works of Danish and Italian design, the
largest selection ever offered in Asia, including works by Hans J. Wegner, Finn
Juhl, and Piero Fornasetti, among others.
Charlotte Raybaud, Head of Day Sale, 20th Century & Contemporary Art: “Our inaugural Day Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art &
Design will present an array of western art, featuring such sought-after
artists as George Condo, Jonas Wood, and David Hockney. Their Asian counterparts
include Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, to name a few. We are
particularly excited to offer three works by Tomoo Gokita, representing different
phases in his career. We will also feature works by representative Chinese
artists including Zao Wou-Ki, Liu Ye, and Mao Yan, while Southeast Asian
artists such as Filipino artist Jigger Cruz, Vietnamese artist Le Pho, and Indonesian
artist Christine Ay Tjoe will also be represented.”
Western and Asian Modern and Contemporary Art
Clowns began appearing in George Condo’s
oeuvre in the early 1980s, a subject matter that showcased the artist’s
subversion of portraiture, basing his characters on memory and imagination
rather than mere appropriation. Son of Bozo comes from
a group of paintings that began in 2006, showing clown-like figures in costumes
adorned with multi-coloured polka-dots. The work - hailing from the American
television sensation ‘Bozo the Clown’ from the 1940s to ’60s - sees that the
innocent, clownish trope of Pierrot has been coyly subverted by Condo.
Works by other
modern and contemporary artists will also be presented, incluidng Ugo Rondinone, Eddie Martinez, Jonas Wood, David
Hockney, Martin Kippenberger, and Anthony Gormley, among others.
Takashi Murakami is one of the most successful contemporary artists to
emerge from Post-War Asia. Growing up a Japanese immigrant in suburban New
Jersey, Madsaki developed a tough, boisterous personality, which is clear in
his work. Having learnt the ropes of street art as part of the New York
collective ‘Barnstormers’, utilising aspects of ‘lo-fi’ aesthetics in his
practice is something Madsaki has in common with Murakami. In this Flower collaboration with MADSAKI,
Murakami collaborates with Madsaki on a graffiti-esque rendition of his iconic
flowers. This work is recognisably Neo-Pop, whilst still highlighting each
artists’ individual style. This aesthetic cohesiveness is a testament to the
chemistry between these collaborators.
Also to be presented is “SCULPTURE”, a work in which Murakami collaborates with
influential fashion designer and creative mind Virgil Abloh.
Phillips successfully sold Japanese artist Tomoo Gokita’s Women in Crime (2015) for HKD 2.74
million last May, achieving a world auction record for the artist. Responding
to current market demand, we are delighted to present three works by Gokita
this season, representing his different phases of creation – Cheap Sensation (2007), Waiting Game (2007), and Portrait of an Insomniac Junior-High Student
(2010).
Tomoo
Gokita’s works ensnare viewers into the underground subculture realms of
abstraction, surrealism and film noir – subtle and magnetic. In Cheap
Sensation, Gokita
renders a female figure in a multi-layered A-line dress, a grey ‘V’ indicative
of her cleavage. The silent, dramatic quality of the work is highly seductive,
and yet it also draws a sense of unease through the viewers’ inability to
logically process the subject as a beautiful woman.
Works by other contemporary Japanese artists include
Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, and Ayako Rokkaku.
Zao Wou-Ki’s works on paper reveal a more delicate, contemplative side
of the artist’s practice. Untitled, 1956 comes from an
Important Private Asian Collection and sees Zao’s continued exploration of the
realm of abstraction. In this work, Zao rediscovers
and returns to his cultural roots through the use of ancient Chinese bronze and
oracle bone inscriptions, as depicted through the small glyphs scattered
against bright blue hues. Throughout his career, Zao illustrates the constant
dialogue between his cultural roots and his western exposure. Although Zao still
kept to abstraction, his work conveys a more raw and unhurried approach of his
ink aesthetic.
Other exciting modern works by Léonard-Tsuguharu
Foujita, T’ang Haywen, Lee Ufan, and Kwon Young-Woo will also be presented.
Big Pigeon , is a rare early work from an important Private European Collection, painted
in 1995 when Liu Ye had just returned to China, steeping in his personal memories
and embedded inspiration. It is a humorous inside-joke spun into a
surrealistic scene taken from a real event: the bespectacled protagonist - the
artist’s German dealer at the time, Klaus Märtens from Galerie Taube - takes a
tumble while clasping a painting. Meanwhile, an oversized, intransigent pigeon
peers through a window pane. One is able to detect Liu’s love of René Magritte
via Big Pigeon’s
eschewal of reality and its blatant impossibility.
In addition, works by other
contemporary Chinese artists Wang Guangyi, Mao Yan, and Ma Sibo will also be on
offer.
Important Modern Design
Comprising 36 lots of Nordic and Italian
design, the Design section of the Day sale is the largest ever offered at
Phillips in Asia, including the following designers Hans J. Wegner, Finn Juhl,
and Piero Fornasetti.
The Early Swivel Armchair, model
no. JH502, and Early
‘Architect’s desk’, model no. JH571, by Hans J. Wegner, both of these models
were exhibited at the prestigious ‘Copenhagen Cabinetmakers’ Guild’.
The present Two-Seater
Sofa, model no. FJ 53 was designed by the Danish architect Finn Juhl, and
executed by the master cabinetmaker Niels Vodder. Both
Juhl’s and Vodder’s reputations are indissolubly connected, a symbiotic
partnership that lasted for almost two decades.
Only the prodigious talent of the cabinetmaker Niels Vodder could have
ever produced such an elegantly and sculpturally formed work. The sofa eloquently defines its adherence to
sculptural forms, much influenced by Twentieth-Century European
artists.
The present Rare ‘Piccolo Coromandel’ Cabinet
designed by Piero Fornasetti features imaginary architecture and landscapes,
which conjure up a fantastical atmosphere inspired by oriental motifs. The
‘Piccolo Coromandel’, was transfer-printed and then adorned in gold leaf, onto
a decorative background of burr walnut-veneered wood.
Download Evening Sale catalogue and Day Sale catalogue
Phillips Hong Kong Autumn
Sales 2018
20th Century &
Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 25 November 2018, 6pm HKT
20th Century &
Contemporary Art and Design Day Sale, 26 November 2018, 10:30am HKT
Jewels and
Jadeite, 26 November 2018, 2:30pm HKT
The Hong Kong
Watch Auction: SEVEN, 27 November 2018, 12pm HKT
Location: Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong,
5 Connaught Road, Central, Hong Kong
Upcoming Asia Previews - 20th
Century & Contemporary Art & Design Sales
Taipei
Bellavita Gallery,
B1/F, No. 28, Songren Road, Taipei, Taipei City, Taiwan 110
17 – 18 November
2018, 11am – 6pm
Hong Kong
Mandarin Oriental
Hong Kong, 1/F & 2/F, 5 Connaught Road Central, Hong Kong
22 – 26 November 2018, 10am – 6pm HKT
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Visit www.phillips.com for further information.
*Estimates
do not include buyer’s premium; prices achieved include the hammer price plus
buyer’s premium
PRESS
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