- 1042
Motonaga Sadamasa
Estimate
1,500,000 - 2,500,000 HKD
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Description
- Motonaga Sadamasa
- Untitled
- oil and synthetic polymer resin on canvas
signed in English and dated 75
Provenance
Private Asian Collection
Condition
This work is generally in good condition with minor surface accretion near the lower left corner and faint circular craquelures in the lower right quadrant. There are also two vertical dripping marks down the central lower portion. When examined under ultraviolet light, there appears to be no evidence of restoration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
When Water Meets the Scorching Sun
Motonaga Sadamasa
I began to draw various shapes picked up from nature. I feel very easy because it has an enormous stock of several billions of years. – Motonaga Sadamasa1
Gutai’s first ever exhibition in 1955 was a groundbreaking outdoor show in Ashiya City entitled “Experimental Outdoor Modern Art Exhibition to Challenge the Midsummer Burning Sun”. At the exhibition, Motonaga Sadamasa’s iconic outdoor installation constituted what Yoshihara Jiro declared as “the world’s first water sculpture”. Filling vinyl tubes and sheets with water stained with a red hue, Motonaga strung them on trees such that they hung like teardrops, elegantly refracting light from the sun. A year later, an equally milestone piece by Motonaga involved him funneling smoke through a large metallic box, then tapping the box’s reverse to create transient rings of smoke lit up by colored lights. The performance was a mesmerizing commentary on ephemerality, materiality and the beauty of nature, laying down the foundation for the highly experimental oeuvre of one of the most important first-generation Gutai artists.
Motonaga’s paintings in the late 1950s embodied the investigational spirit of such performances and installations and exhibits a profound engagement with forces of nature. From 1959 onwards Motonaga developed his signature 1960s style of painting in which he allowed colors to drip and intermingle according to texture and viscosity. The enthralling organic effect is reminiscent of the traditional Japanese technique tarashikomi (“dripping”), which involves the application of different paints one upon the other before pigment is fully dry. Motonaga then scatters gravel over the canvas to create further unexpected effects: by trusting in a force larger than himself, the artist demonstrated an ingenious regeneration of Gutai’s materialist philosophy. The artist states: “I consciously used this approach as a way of making my picutures distinctive […] I entrusted it to the power of nature”.2
In the late 1960s, following a visit to New York, Motonaga mastered techniques in spray painting and revolutionized his visual vocabulary. Defined by hard edges, fantastical shapes, bold saturated hues and impeccably polished color gradations, these seminal late paintings are a continuation of the artist’s lifelong ruminations on fluidity versus concreteness, intuition versus control, and nature versus man. The works feature vibrant embryonic forms evoking cheerful dream-like cartoons, emanating a potent buoyant movement that defies the immobility of painting. What was inherent in the entirety of Motonaga’s oeuvre, whether in his early performances, installations or paintings, was movement: as Kawai Hayao comments, in a personal conversation with Motonaga: “According to my intuition, earlier stages of your work give me the feeling of going down and the [later] style gives me a feeling rather of going up”.3
The current lot (Lot 1042) is exemplary of Motonaga’s distinctive 1970s paintings. Defined by the commanding arc of a circle, an arresting color contrast between black and burnt orange and finishing with a virtuosic chiaroscuro effect, the painting evokes the majestic corona of the sun as it emerges out of a solar eclipse. The polished metallic sheen offers a contemporary echo of the primacy of concrete form and fluidity of color in Motonaga’s pivotal early works: while the artist’s 1950s experiments with industrial material pre-dated concepts of landscape and new-media art, his mature paintings build a bridge between post-war art and a wholly contemporary aesthetic with his enduring engagement with nature and material. Motonaga’s accomplished oeuvre can thus be seen as a continuous unearthing of the latent potential in the creative interaction between man and earth.
1 Motonaga Sadamasa, quoted in Sadamasa Motonaga: Works 1955-1989, p. 40
2 Motonaga Sadamasa in an interview conducted by Osaki Shin'ichiro and Yamamura Tokutaro, August 21, 1985
3 Refer to 1, p. 39
Motonaga Sadamasa
I began to draw various shapes picked up from nature. I feel very easy because it has an enormous stock of several billions of years. – Motonaga Sadamasa1
Gutai’s first ever exhibition in 1955 was a groundbreaking outdoor show in Ashiya City entitled “Experimental Outdoor Modern Art Exhibition to Challenge the Midsummer Burning Sun”. At the exhibition, Motonaga Sadamasa’s iconic outdoor installation constituted what Yoshihara Jiro declared as “the world’s first water sculpture”. Filling vinyl tubes and sheets with water stained with a red hue, Motonaga strung them on trees such that they hung like teardrops, elegantly refracting light from the sun. A year later, an equally milestone piece by Motonaga involved him funneling smoke through a large metallic box, then tapping the box’s reverse to create transient rings of smoke lit up by colored lights. The performance was a mesmerizing commentary on ephemerality, materiality and the beauty of nature, laying down the foundation for the highly experimental oeuvre of one of the most important first-generation Gutai artists.
Motonaga’s paintings in the late 1950s embodied the investigational spirit of such performances and installations and exhibits a profound engagement with forces of nature. From 1959 onwards Motonaga developed his signature 1960s style of painting in which he allowed colors to drip and intermingle according to texture and viscosity. The enthralling organic effect is reminiscent of the traditional Japanese technique tarashikomi (“dripping”), which involves the application of different paints one upon the other before pigment is fully dry. Motonaga then scatters gravel over the canvas to create further unexpected effects: by trusting in a force larger than himself, the artist demonstrated an ingenious regeneration of Gutai’s materialist philosophy. The artist states: “I consciously used this approach as a way of making my picutures distinctive […] I entrusted it to the power of nature”.2
In the late 1960s, following a visit to New York, Motonaga mastered techniques in spray painting and revolutionized his visual vocabulary. Defined by hard edges, fantastical shapes, bold saturated hues and impeccably polished color gradations, these seminal late paintings are a continuation of the artist’s lifelong ruminations on fluidity versus concreteness, intuition versus control, and nature versus man. The works feature vibrant embryonic forms evoking cheerful dream-like cartoons, emanating a potent buoyant movement that defies the immobility of painting. What was inherent in the entirety of Motonaga’s oeuvre, whether in his early performances, installations or paintings, was movement: as Kawai Hayao comments, in a personal conversation with Motonaga: “According to my intuition, earlier stages of your work give me the feeling of going down and the [later] style gives me a feeling rather of going up”.3
The current lot (Lot 1042) is exemplary of Motonaga’s distinctive 1970s paintings. Defined by the commanding arc of a circle, an arresting color contrast between black and burnt orange and finishing with a virtuosic chiaroscuro effect, the painting evokes the majestic corona of the sun as it emerges out of a solar eclipse. The polished metallic sheen offers a contemporary echo of the primacy of concrete form and fluidity of color in Motonaga’s pivotal early works: while the artist’s 1950s experiments with industrial material pre-dated concepts of landscape and new-media art, his mature paintings build a bridge between post-war art and a wholly contemporary aesthetic with his enduring engagement with nature and material. Motonaga’s accomplished oeuvre can thus be seen as a continuous unearthing of the latent potential in the creative interaction between man and earth.
1 Motonaga Sadamasa, quoted in Sadamasa Motonaga: Works 1955-1989, p. 40
2 Motonaga Sadamasa in an interview conducted by Osaki Shin'ichiro and Yamamura Tokutaro, August 21, 1985
3 Refer to 1, p. 39