Sotheby's Hong Kong to Hold Contemporary Asian Autumn Sales

Written by Richard Christianson Wednesday, 07 December 2011 23:10

Hong Kong.- Sotheby’s Hong Kong will hold its Contemporary Asian Art Autumn Sale 2011 on October 2nd and 3rd at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The first evening follows the record-breaking sale of 'The Ullens Collection – The Nascence of Avant-Garde China' last April, presenting the second instalment, 'The Ullens Collection: Experimentation and Evolution', comprising 90 lots estimated in excess of US$10 million. The Contemporary Asian Art sale will take place on 3 October, with 18 sale will take place on 3 October, with 180 lots estimated at approximately US$25 million. The works include important contemporary Chinese masterpieces, helmed by Zhang Xiaogang’s "Bloodline: Big Family No. 1", a series of innovative and inspiring design by Korean artists, and works by Japan’s Tomoko Konoike. In total, 270 lots will be on offer for the two sales, amounting to an estimate in excess of US$35 million.

Zhang Xiaogang’s iconic paintings have broken records in recent sales at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, and this season they are proud to offer yet another significant piece from the 'Bloodline: Big Family' series. Drawing from those conventional black and white family photos taken during the Cultural Revolution, Zhang’s series has become emblematic and ubiquitous, summoning the collective memories of an entire era. Among the earliest of the series, the present example - 'Bloodline: Big Family No. 1' depicts an intellectual-turned-worker and his two sober children wearing Mao pins on their chests. The minimal, refracted light source and the thin red line connecting them are important motifs in the Bloodline series; here they appear well-defined and well-crafted. The yellow and red colours on their faces symbolise the Chinese people, set against an expansive grey background that hovers like a shadow of historical memory. This work was painted in 1994, the year that marked the beginning of the Bloodline series. It was exhibited in the 22nd International Biennale of São Paulo that same year, marking the first time Zhang’s art was shown outside China, one year before Zhang garnered international acclaim at the Venice Biennale.

Zeng Fanzhi’s Mask Series centres on the anxiety of urban living. It also attests to how Chinese artists discarded the idealism and passion of the 1980s and turned their focus toward everyday life. The man in the painting not only has perfectly coiffed hair but also wears a suit. Paired with the mask that hides his emotions, they make up the basic gear for urban survival. The red scarf and the badge on his shoulder not only symbolise how modern Chinese people shoulder the weight of the Cultural Revolution, but also represent the artist’s youthful but unfulfilled desire to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Young Pioneers, and how he was not accepted in the mainstream. These alienating elements formed the basic premise for Zeng’s Mask Series. On the canvas is also a fighter jet flying high in the sky, representing the inexorable force of modernisation. However, the toy plane clasped in the man’s hand, symbolising the loss of ideals and the powerlessness of resistance, is destined not to fly on its own. Although tears flow from the protagonist’s eyes, the mask holds back any emotional expression as if it were a restraining device. Filled with paradoxes and contradictions; this canvas is almost a tragedy. This work stands apart from the artist’s other early pieces in its use of vivid colours and added metaphorical layers - "Mask Series 1998 No. 5" is a fine example of the middle period of Zeng’s Mask Series.

First created in 1991, Series 2 belongs to Fang Lijun’s most mature series of his early period. Fang brought works from this series to the 1993 Venice Biennale and Series 2, No. 2 also made the cover of the  New York Times Magazine. That was a time of unparalleled success, marking the pinnacle of artist’s early career. The present lot - "Series 2, No. 11" portrays a bald figure with his back to the viewer facing a young woman swimming in the distance. These two signature motifs are juxtaposed for the first time here: the self-mocking baldhead signifying the loss of ideals of the 1980s, and swimming as metaphor for the human struggle to survive in the 1990s – a theme that would proliferate and eventually gain widespread popularity.  This is one of the most important works in early contemporary Chinese art, a veritable treasure in any collection.


Recently, art, architecture and design have become inextricably linked. Korea is a country distinguished by its active innovations and respect for tradition. It has exported many fine contemporary designers to the world, consolidating the importance of design in shaping the future of the country on cultural, social, political and philosophical realms. This sale features a collection of minimalist works by extremely appealing, resourceful and inspiring designers, among them Choi Byung Hoon, Studio Joon&Jung and Kim Baek Ki. Currently the Director of the Institute of Art & Design at Hongik University, Choi Byung Hoon is well-respected in Korea and abroad. "AfterImage" is one of the artist’s most famous series. Other editions of this work are in the permanent collections of the Busan Museum of Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea and the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. Silhouettes, materials, contours and forms from negligible aspects of daily phenomena are appropriated and subsequently reimagined by the artist, combining qualities of both the aesthetic and the functional.  In this work, the polished granite sits perfectly in balance with the lowest level of the stepped plank. The sculptural conversation between wood and stone, along with tensions between straight lines and curved, lightness and weight or positive and negative space, reveal an ultimate harmony of coexistence. Hailing from Eindhoven, design team Joonsoo Kim, Hyunwook Lee and Jungyou Choi received training in their native Korea and the Netherlands. Their works, as Studio Joon&Jung  weave together two vastly different visual cultures and their dogged  commitment toward integrating people with one another underlines each of their designs. In the wooden installation “Petals” that face downward bloom into a big flower in response to human presence underneath. The light itself also increases in luminosity, silently welcoming and interacting with the people as if having its own life.  It is a catalyst for social ambience. "Rocking on the Beach" consists of seemingly industrial moulded pipes that contain sand and gravel from the beach. As the chairs rock, a natural rhythm of the beach can be heard, bringing forth the tranquillity of the Dutch seas. Formerly a product designer, Kim Baek Ki is famous for his versatility; his Domestic Perspectives series links and conflates collective elements in the medium of furniture. The lacquered wooden "Positives=Negatives" adopts its flaring and elegant contours from the roof of a traditional Korean house. Kim declares that “Everything has two sides,” of which this is a great example. This object can be a bench or a low desk that when flipped becomes a rack or a shelf.

After the Japan earthquake on 11 March 2011, terror and fear of the nuclear crisis changed man’s attitude toward the world. Tomoko Konoike is honest in expressing her own thoughts and emotions regarding this tumultuous event. The gold dust on the canvas, seemingly insinuating nuclear rays, looks like small knives – a signature motif in this artist’s work, both of which are threatening and terrifying. While viewers often ask artists the question, “What are you creating?”, Konoike's work poses the question in reverse "You Who Are Looking Who Are Looking  -  - -- What Are You Looking At After The   What Are You Looking At After The Tsunami", blurring the boundary  between viewer and creator, believing in “the viewer [finding] what should be seen beyond the creator’s intentions.”  Viewers inspired by the world will have a new understanding of it, and, therefore, contemplating the way they view creation.


Other highlights includes works by Yu Youhan, among the first Chinese artists to delve into abstraction since the country’s reopening in the 1980s.  "1990-5" was executed in 1990, the last year of the artist’s abstract period. For the previous eight years, Yu had concentrated on monochromes. After 1988, he began to incorporate vibrant colours of the Pop aesthetic into his abstract works. "1990-5" is an exceptional sample from this period - a multicolour abstraction with each brushstroke applied in a host of warm colours against a blue background, disseminating gradually from the upper left to the lower right, as if they were currents of nature. One of the founding members of the Pond Society during the  ‘85 New Wave, Song Ling visited factories in Shanghai in the early 1980s, which clearly influenced his "People: Pipelines" series. In this work, Song Ling employs surrealist techniques to position a set of symbolic human figures with no facial features within the round mouth of a pipe. At first glance, it resembles the style and format of propaganda posters found in industrial areas throughout the 1980s, though that was clearly not the artist’s intention. To him, the cold machinery reduces men into tools on an assembly line. This work reveals the anxiety and hopelessness of men in the face of industrialisation and urbanisation. When it was shown at the “’85 New Space” exhibition, Song Ling garnered a lot of attention

Sotheby’s was founded in London on March 11, 1744, when Samuel Baker auctioned “several Hundred scarce and valuable books” from the library of the Rt Hon Sir John Stanley for a few hundred pounds. The story of Sotheby’s expansion beyond books to include the best in fine and decorative arts and jewellery is also the story of the global auction market, defined by extraordinary moments that continue to capture the world’s attention. Since 1744, Sotheby’s has distinguished itself as a leader in the auction world. Our auctions, conducted in the venerable salerooms in London and Paris, the museum-quality galleries of our headquarters in New York and the spirited environs of Hong Kong rivet audiences worldwide. Season after season, the depth and excellence of Sotheby’s offerings have produced watershed, record-breaking sales. Sotheby’s has been entrusted with the sale of many of the world's treasures, amongst them: Napoleon’s St Helena library, the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels, the Estate of Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents, Pablo Picasso’s Garçon à la Pipe, Francis Bacon’s Triptych, 1976, The Grand Ducal Collections of Baden, the Qianlong Yellow-Ground Famille-Rose Double-Gourd Vase, the 5,000-year-old Guennol Lioness, Giacometti’s L’Homme Qui Marche I, the Magna Carta, the first printing of the Declaration of Independence and The Martin Luther King Jr Collection. Sotheby’s has long recognised that great works of art, as well as the collectors interested in consigning and acquiring them, inhabit the global sphere. We were the first international auction house to expand from London to New York in 1955, and the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong and the then–Soviet Union. Today they maintain 90 locations in 40 countries and we conduct 250 auctions each year in over 70 categories. In addition to their four principal salerooms, the company, recognising the potential in new markets, also conducts auctions in six other salerooms around the world, further expanding their global reach. Through BidNow, clients can also watch all Sotheby’s auctions live online and place bids in real time, from anywhere in the world. And through the ever-enriching content on Sothebys.com, the oldest publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (BID) continues to be fresh and current, while always mindful of its historic roots. An unwavering commitment to the very highest level of quality remains the goal of one of the most storied names on the global business stage. Visit Sotheby's website at ... http://www.sothebys.com

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