Lot  128 Ravenel Autumn Auction 2019 Taipei

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2019 Taipei

In Hope

Yayoi KUSAMA (Japanese, 1929)

1988

Acrylic on canvas

41 x 31.8 cm

Estimate

TWD 10,000,000-20,000,000

HKD 2,532,000-5,063,000

USD 323,300-646,600

CNY 2,315,000-4,630,000

Sold Price

TWD 10,800,000

HKD 2,769,231

USD 354,098

CNY 2,488,479


Signature

This painting is to be sold with a registration card issued by Yayoi Kusama Studio.
This painting is to be sold with a registration card issued by Yayoi Kusama Studio.

+ OVERVIEW

“The way I see it, by living in a contemporary position, I'm just attempting to breath in the atmosphere of the times and wanting to open up a bright red flower for the future. It's the same as the butterfly seeking out the barren mountains for its final destination before death, the silkworm spitting out its silk in spring, or the flowers showing off their vitality in brilliant colours.”

– Yayoi Kusama, Mugea no Ami Kusama / Yayoi Jiden

The details of remarkable achievements Kusama has attained needn’t to be given here as she is already a well-known artist; art lovers are highly acquainted with her monumental pumpkins, her dots and lines, and even her “obliteration” in ideology. Over the past few years, Kusama’s creation has performed strongly at the art market, and collectors in droves are eager to purchase her works. Kusama’s primary artistic inspiration and aesthetic element is the polka dot, which was also an important symbol of the hippie era. Kusama was active in the international art scene in the 1960s, during the hippie era of sexual liberation and the anti-war movement. Known at the time as "Queen of the Dots", "Queen of the Hippies" or "Queen of the Avant-Garde", Kusama’s was almost as famous and influential as pop art icon Andy Warhol. The polka dot motif that appeared again and again in Kusama’s works also influenced the younger generation of contemporary artists including Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami.

The eye-catching "In Hope" was completed in 1988. Its red surface and different sizes of white polka dots creates the artist's classic vocabulary—the weblike texture that grows like a cell, with the thick brushstrokes of acrylic paints provokes the viewer's optic nerve. As the sense of turbulence continues to proliferate and the network of images extends further into the depths of people's subconscious, it is like creating a new concept of eternal time and unlimited space, and the "infinite" world of Yayoi Kusama is fully developed in this moment.
Related Info

Modern & Contemporary Asian Art

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2019 Taipei

Sunday, December 1, 2019, 2:00pm