Christie’s Evening and Day sales of Asian Contemporary Art on 27 and 28 November in Hong Kong will bring together the dynamic worlds of contemporary art from China, Japan and Korea. Christie’s continues to offer a platform showcasing the best in Asian contemporary and Chinese 20th Century art, and this season will present over 450 works with a pre-sale estimate in excess of HK$300 million (US$38 million) across three sales. Diverse in subject matter, styles and techniques, and yet distinctly Asian in artistic temperament, these works present a regional view of contemporary Asia. With the careful and expert selection of Christie’s global specialists, the works in this sale cater to the broad tastes of collectors from around the world.

CONTEMPORARY ART, TRADITIONAL ROOTS
Among the leading works offered in this season’s Evening Sale are those from three of today’s most dynamic contemporary artists: Cai Guo Qiang, Zeng Fanzhi and Masami Teraoka. Each will be represented by a truly seminal master work that succeeds in uniting their respective contemporary vision and artistic vocabulary with their distinctive cultural background and history.

Cai Guo Qiang’s (b. 1957) Search for Extraterrestrials is one of the finest and most compelling of his famed Projects for Extraterrestrials series (estimate on request). A monumental work that measures almost 3 metres high and 32 metres wide, here Cai ingeniously combines Chinese ink-wash techniques, smoke and gunpowder in a fusion of art and technology that transcends the cultural gap between East and West and past and present. The result makes for a striking image, one in which the artist explores the interconnectivity between powerful Mother Nature and mankind.

From Zeng Fanzhi comes Mask Series (estimate: HK$12,000,000-18,000,000 / US$1,538,500-2,307,700), an important work from a private European collection of Chinese contemporary art that stands as a rare early example reflecting vividly the artist's aesthetic pursuits in the 1990s. The multi-figural composition is emotionally charged, intuitive, and physiologically penetrating, much like the multi-figural portraiture of Francis Bacon or Max Beckman. The uncommon arrangement of the composition establishes a complicated spatial relationship that is not often seen in Zeng's paintings. The three flâneurs, with their distinctively oversized raw hands and frozen smiling faces, appear ironically isolated despite their grouping. The unusual ideograms on the vibrant yellow background remind us of the Chinese ancient aesthetics that Zeng inherited and continually transformed in his paintings in the mid 1990s. Eloquently expressing the mental and emotional strain and pressure in a new urban society, Zeng captures an unsettled tone in a work that will be among the season’s most sought-after.

Japanese-American artist Masami Teraoka’s (b. 1936) works relentlessly point out the fundamental flaws in our handling of taboo subjects and our moralizing views about sexuality. After extensive travel to Europe in the 1990’s, Teraoka’s work transformed from delicate watercolours and creative interpretations of the Japanese woodblock ukiyo-e prints, to large sweeping oil on panel works encased by gold frames of Renaissance flair. In Semana Santa/Venus' Security Check he purposefully exaggerates his subject in a provocative manner to tackle social issues, but with interjected lightheartedness (estimate: HK$1,200,000-1,800,000 / US$153,800-230,800). Within imposing frames that rival architectural church murals and altarpieces, Teraoka adapts aspects of Renaissance painting while nevertheless embracing a vigilant integration of his Japanese heritage. Here, the viewer witnesses the ever pure Venus in a situation of racial profiling at an airport security check point. The exaggerated poses and irrational spacing and stylized aesthetics heighten the visual impact, while also exemplifying Teraoka’s masterful fusion of artistic and social concerns. A piercing and commanding narrative on the age-old debate on religion and sex, it underscores Teraoka’s place as one of the principle artists of Japanese contemporary art.