Chiharu Shiota, State of Being (Boy’s Kimono), 2013
metal, black thread and kimono
Lot 16, Estimate HK$1,500,000 - 2,500,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Association with Yongle,
1 December
Phillips Hong Kong will showcase masters of mixed media at the Fall Auctions of the 20th Century & Contemporary Art and Design Sales, including works by Damien Hirst, Yayoi Kusama and Chiharu Shiota. Explore how six ground-breaking artists have pushed boundaries, unified art forms and communicated through both interaction and immersion.
Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst, Forgiven, 2008
butterflies and household gloss on canvas
Lot 10, Estimate HK$ 6,000,000 - 9,000,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Association with Yongle,
1 December
“You have to find universal triggers, everyone’s frightened of glass, everyone’s frightened of sharks, everyone loves butterflies.” - Damien Hirst
By 2003, Hirst had become the UK’s leading importer of butterflies, having featured them extensively in his oeuvre. A significant number of these appear in the glossy kaleidoscope mosaic of Forgiven (2008), perhaps encapsulating everything you need to know about the British artist in one fell swoop.
Forgiven is part of Hirst’s 2001 Kaleidoscope series, where the artist methodically collected and arranged thousands of butterfly wings to form concentric circles on spherical canvases. Likened to the radial arrangement of some Gothic stained windows in great European cathedrals, there is the feeling of veneration and spirituality that comes with the piece – a deep, solemn acknowledgement of death and our temporary existence, one day transcending flesh, and perhaps being resurrected in a higher being’s own multicolored, mixed media canvas.
Damien Hirst, After the Rain, 2007
butterflies and household gloss on canvas
Lot 237, Estimate HK$ 3,000,000 - 5,000,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale in Association with Yongle,
30 November
After the Rain holds a similar reflection on life – or perhaps the resilience of life – as shown through the butterfly motif. The individuality of each butterfly, from their unique wing patterns to their position in the work’s composition, is heightened against the emerald-green gloss. Stark, scattered, and in some areas, sparse, the composition alludes to life stirring awake even after downpour.
María Berrío
María Berrío, The Lovers 2, 2015
watercolor, swarovski rhinestones and Japanese rice paper collage on canvas
Lot 3, Estimate HK$ 4,000,000 - 5,000,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Association with Yongle,
1 December
Colombian-born Berrío is pioneering a new wave of Latin American art, delivering highly intricate works that speak to the spirit of Central and South America’s magical realist traditions and folklore. Her configuration of a sensuous, almost dreamlike version of the feminine form and, the divine feminine, has granted her critical acclaim. The artist’s meteoric rise can be exemplified by her solo presentation with Victoria Miro Gallery at Frieze Los Angeles this year, following quickly after her major survey debut at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach in 2021.
Indeed, it’s hard not to liken Berrío's work to that of Mexico’s Frida Kahlo, whose self-portraits shared a similarly folksy, surrealist story of the artist’s life as a Latin American woman in post-colonial spaces.
With The Lovers 2, Berrío treats us to a portrait of an otherworldly female protagonist, with a delicate, pale complexion shaded with an equally delicate jewelled veil. She holds a flamingo in one hand, confident yet composed, and in gentle contrast to her backdrop of crimson flowers.
The artist's process is painstaking yet thoughtful, as she builds layer after layer using rare decorative papers sourced from Japan, Thailand and Nepal, before adding watercolors.
Derek Fordjour
The American multidisciplinary artist, whose work at Frieze was bought by Beyoncé and Jay Z, often depicts Black figures performing cultural rituals or rites of passage in his work. Fordjour uses cardboard tiles, newspapers (including the salmon pink of The Financial Times), and finally acrylics and vine charcoal to develop his mixed media composition.
Derek Fordjour, Single Pivot Turn, 2018
acrylic, charcoal and oil pastel on newspaper mounted on canvas
Lot 2, Estimate HK$ 2,000,000 - 3,000,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Association with Yongle,
1 December
Single Pivot Turn focuses on a single figure, donning a costume reminiscent of Zaouli dancers in the Ivory Coast, caught in a passionate moment of cultural choreography. The juxtaposition of anonymity and prestige is found in the use of imperial purple; the exuberant pose, all at once tempered by a masked face. The pairing aligns with a larger question Fordjour poses in his work: what is Black success in White America?
Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama, Heart, 1999
mixed media
Lot 213, Estimate HK$ 1,000,000 - 2,000,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art and Design Day Sale in Association with Yongle,
30 November
As a means for Kusama to face her fears of sexual intimacy, the artist often obsessively sewed hundreds of soft phallic protrusions. They can be seen in large-scale installations, like Phalli's Field, and more intimate creations, like a heeled shoe or a box sculpture.
Endearingly, the box sculpture Heart draws a link to the box artworks of fellow artist Joseph Cornell, with whom Kusama shared a platonic relationship until his death in 1972.
Created the year after Kusama’s major landmark retrospective Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1969, the sculpture features organic forms, candy-cane colored phalluses that protrude desperately from the tightly-packed box frame. The name Heart, evoking the body's vital organ, also lends to the rhythmic, pulsating effect that these striped tentacles seem to emit.
The artist’s largest retrospective in Asia, Yayoi Kusma: 1945 to Now, is currently on view at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong until 14 May 2023.
Chiharu Shiota
Chiharu Shiota, State of Being (Boy’s Kimono), 2013
metal, black thread and kimono
Lot 16, Estimate HK$1,500,000 - 2,500,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Association with Yongle,
1 December
Shiota explores the connection and experience that an item might share with its former wearer. Clothing and thread is used by the Japanese artist as a spiritual conduit, communicating the complexity of life and loss through vacant spaces.
In State of Being (Boy’s Kimono), the absence of the boy -- the owner of this kimono, as it appears in the title -- is amplified by Shiota's suspension of the clothing item within the metal frame. The artist painstakingly and meditatively weaves black thread around this central object, conveying the multitude memories once associated with the garment.
Chiharu Shiota, Skin, 2015
thread of canvas
Lot 215, Estimate HK$ 250,000 - 350,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art and Design Day Sale in Association with Yongle,
30 November
Skin, an intricately composed piece from 2015, faithfully reproduces the texture of skin through the intertwinement of black thread on a white tondo canvas. The intersection of threads forms shapes that are never identical, exactly like in the irregular lines that expand across human skin and are visible upon close inspection of the epidermis, as well as the intricacy of veins which provide life to all living beings on earth.
Loie Hollowell
Loie Hollowell, Split Orbs in gray-brown, yellow, purple and carmine, 2021
oil, acrylic and high-density foam on linen mounted on panel
Lot 7, Estimate HK$ 4,000,000 - 6,000,000
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Association with Yongle,
1 December
Childbirth is painful. The visceral intensity of that pain, however, is not always reflected to viewers as acutely as it feels. This is the basis of Hollowell’s Split Orbs collection, which fluctuate in tone, shade and saturation to mimic the shifts of consciousness that appear during labor.
The use of mixed media is not at first obvious in Split Orbs, and the illusion lends to its wider message about the perception of pain during childbirth. Hollowell constructs the concave forms with linen covered panels and high-density foam, then seals and smooths the protrusion on canvas with a shell of acrylic and then oils. The depth is almost indiscernible to the naked eye.
20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale in association with Yongle
Hong Kong 30 November 2022
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in association with Yongle
Hong Kong 1 December 2022