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After a successful launch last November, Phillips is pleased to stage its second New Now auction in Hong Kong, featuring an eclectic mix of works from exciting young and blue-chip contemporary artists alike, including Takashi Murakami, Chiharu Shiota, Mr., KAWS, MADSAKI, teamLab, Guy Yanai, Gongkan, Oh de Laval, Kasing Lung, among others. The sale will take place on 29 March at 2pm HKT. Prior to the auction, the exhibition at Phillips’ Asia headquarters in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District will be open to the public from 20-29 March, coinciding with the city’s highly anticipated Art Week.
Widely regarded as one of the most important and forward-thinking artists of our time, KAWS is celebrated for his multidisciplinary practice that straddles the line between fine art and street art. The present work, CHUM (KCO15) is instantly recognisable as a major work by the artist. Painted in smooth planes of cerulean blue, the figure bordered in an electrifying shade of ultramarine, which when viewed in the flesh, recalls the visual impact of Yves Klein’s ingenious and mesmerising invention of International Klein Blue. Regarded as KAWS’ trademark cartoon character, ‘Chum’ has become synonymous with the artist and his exploration of contemporary pop culture. Works that include this subject matter have demonstrated to be highly coveted by international art collectors.
Coming in the form of a software programme, teamLab’s Universe of Water Particles – Gold is a 5-channel artwork depicting a virtual, moving waterfall in an immersive scale that towers over 3 meters long. Created through the art collective’s concept of ‘ultrasubjective’ space, a term that refers to a distinct form of spatial depiction prevalent in pre-modern East Asian paintings; in such pieces, oceans, rivers and other bodies of water were expressed as a series of curvilinear lines to convey movement and simulate life. Through the use of simple lines and the colour gold, the present work echoes the use of gold foil and flat perspectives seen on Japanese folding screens. This March, the teamLab: Continuous exhibition which displays different luminous autonomous ovoids will be launched in Hong Kong. After having achieved the world auction record for teamLab in 2021, Phillips is delighted to offer this work coinciding with the large-scale outdoor art project in the city by the collective.
Dense with rich elements, colour, and character Untitled is emblematic of Mr.’s body of work, which delves deep into the otaku subculture and the Japanese aesthetic of kawaii. Each canvas becomes a microcosm of Tokyo’s dynamic atmosphere, where the vibrancy of youth intertwines with the fervor of popular culture. Central to Untitled‘s composition is a character with striking blue hair, whose large, glistening eyes and childlike features capture the quintessential kawaii style in Mr.’s practice. A kaleidoscope of smaller characters and motifs surround the centre, each meticulously rendered, offering a narrative on the bustling nature of otaku culture. The characters, diverse in expression and activity, are interspersed with English and Japanese text, creating a collage that is both textual and visual. This blend of characters from various narratives could be a representation of the crowded nature of Japanese urban life, or the cluttered space of an otaku’s sanctuary, filled with merchandise and memories.
In developing an unorthodox style that combines mass culture with art history, Japanese visual artist MADSAKI boldly reexamines the long-standing conventions that continue to define fine art. A part of his iconic Wannabe series, where MADSAKI reinterpreted classical and contemporary masterpieces throughout art history, the present work, Le Reve 2, pays homage to Pablo Picasso and his 1932 painting Le Rêve. While MADSAKI’s rendition of the iconic work appears to closely follow the composition, colours and form of the original work, the strokes and splatters of MADSAKI’s signature spray paint aesthetic bring upon a sense of motion and rawness to the static portrait. In lieu of Picasso’s serene rendering of his muse’s facial features, MADSAKI replaces them with hollowed eyes and pasted-on smiles, transforming the figure into a striking reformulation derived from his distinct visual lexicon.
An Italian Modernist, Salvo’s practice originally consisted of conceptual photography and sculpture. He would later be associated with the 1960s Arte Povera movement—notably sharing a studio with Alighiero Boetti—before turning to painting in 1973. He would ultimately come to be known for the brightly colored landscapes he commended in the early 1980s, inspired by the likes of Giorgio de Chirico, and which would define the latter half of his oeuvre. Painted in 2019, the present work was created in Salvo’s twilight years, just a few years before his passing in 2015.
Agosto, like many of his other works named after seasons, months and times of day, captures the ephemeral nature of time and memory. The interplay of light and shadow exemplified in Agosto is not just a depiction of a specific time of day, but a broader meditation on time itself. The painting’s highly stylized trees and houses are rich in colour and depth, with warm hues dominating the overall composition, evoking the languid heat of an Italian summer.
