Contemporary Art Evening Sale9 October 2021 • 8:00 PM HKT • Hong Kong
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otheby’s Hong Kong Fall 2021 Contemporary Art Evening Sale presents a refined selection of exceptional masterpieces by leading contemporary artists from around the world. Leading the Evening Sale is Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Red Warrior) from 1982, featuring the most favoured motif from the artist’s oeuvre—the weapon-wielding warrior.
Created in the pivotal year of 1982, Untitled (Red Warrior) is an audacious masterwork from the most desirable period of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s short, intensely prolific career. Untitled (Red Warrior) is an extraordinary vision of Basquiat’s artistic prowess; the bold, gestural lines and intense colour indicative of the artist at his peak.
Presenting Basquiat’s archetypal motif of the isolated hero, the warrior can be interpreted as a self-portrait, a triumphal symbol of the Black artist conquering the invisible oppressor within the image, succeeding in an art world that was predominantly white. Fresh to market, this painting is an extremely rare, museum-quality work to be offered in Asia, the last remaining work from the patron’s private collection.
EXHIBITION POSTER FOR NEW YORK, VREJ BAGHOOMIAN GALLERY, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR APRIL - JUNE 1988, POSTPONED TO 21 OCTOBER - 25 NOVEMBER 1989 紐約弗雷日・巴古米恩畫廊「尚・米榭・巴斯基亞」展覽海報，原定1988年4月至6月舉行，實際上延期至1989年10月21日至11月25日
Untitled (Red Warrior) comes with a distinguished provenance, having been exhibited at the significant 1989 posthumous show, Jean-Michel Basquiat at Vrej Baghoomian Gallery in New York, and featured in the acclaimed Picasso, Bacon & Basquiat exhibition at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York in 2004.
Joining Basquiat’s Untitled (Red Warrior) and heralding the revival of figurative painting towards the end of the 20th century is a remarkable line-up of works by Yoshitomo Nara, Adrian Ghenie, Zhang Xiaogang, Roy Lichtenstein, Liu Wei and Yue Minjun.
Post-war Avant-Garde Masterworks include a powerful selection of abstract paintings by leading American Abstract Expressionists, Joan Mitchell and Robert Motherwell, pioneering Korean Abstract artist Kim Whanki and the indomitable Japanese painter Kazuo Shiraga, vigorously synthesising Eastern and Western sensibilities in the creation of modes of expression that were entirely new.
Coveted Contemporary highlights a dazzling selection of bold, iconic works by blue-chip artists Banksy, Cecily Brown, George Condo and Takashi Murakami, and exciting emerging and established talent, including Nicolas Party, Amoako Boafo, Jadé Fadojutimi and Loie Hollowell.
