Specialists’ Top Picks: First Open/NYC
Specialist and Head of Sale, Han-I Wang, selects her favorite works from the July 22 auction, First Open/NYC.
Kazuo Shiraga (B. 1924), Ougi, oil on canvas; Painted in 1968. Estimate: $80,000 – $120,000
"Currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Dallas Museum of Art, Gutai artist Kazuo Shiraga’s Ougi is a chromatic tour-de-force. Although he was fascinated by the works of the Abstract Expressionists, Shiraga was not satisfied following in their footsteps. Instead he sought to push their process even further to create something outside this movement. He found what he was looking for in Gutai art. Gutai, which translates roughly to 'embodiment' or 'bodily instrument' utilizes radical processes that accentuate the relationship between body and matter. Executed in 1968 at the height of his career, Ougi serves as an example of Shiraga’s innovative and dramatic style. An influential figure within the art world—his work was cited by Jackson Pollock himself as an inspiration—it is only recently that Shiraga has posthumously gained strong recognition amongst the public, having been the focus of a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2013."
Günther Förg (1952–2013), Fassade II, acrylic on panel; Painted in 1987. Estimate: $70,000 – $90,000
"Displaying the artist’s long-standing interest in the exploration of color, abstraction and form, Günther Förg’s Fassade II from 1987 is a stunning example the artist’s continuing dialogue with modern abstraction. I love its monumental size (it’s nearly five feet high) and its rich cardinal red hue. Executing his paintings with a keen awareness of art historical precedents, Förg undoubtedly references modern masters such as Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko in his own creative process. However, Förg transforms this discussion by consciously removing the 'spiritual' or 'Romantic' sentiment often found in his Modernist forefathers’ work. Without the ephemeral hints of an otherworldly dimension, Förg conceives a style which champions the painting itself, the objective fact of painting and its presence within our physical world."
Keith Haring's Untitled
Keith Haring (1958–1990), Untitled, ink on paper; Executed in 1982. Estimate: $20,000 – $30,000
"Drawn in 1982, the year of Haring's Soho gallery debut at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, this compact, vibrant work presents a distillation of his iconic visual vocabulary. Haring clearly sought to startle with his use of arresting color and bold mark-making. This work possesses a dynamic, frenetic energy drawn with intensity: the marks of the paint are staccato-like, and a sense of urgency is revealed in a distinctively typical image with his characteristic patterns of dripping. Haring communicated his experience of the world through his art, and the emotions often associated with his very personal iconography are anxiety and euphoria, power and threat, heaven and hell. These topics do not appear in his work in isolation but rather as overlapping, interacting ideas. It is in this way Haring hoped to communicate at both visceral and intellectual levels simultaneously, allowing us our own interpretation, linking the artist's imagination with our own."
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