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The First Open sale presents a dynamic selection of works by Japanese artists that span the Post-War to Contemporary periods. Koji Inoue, Head of Sale, presents works by Yayoi Kusama, Hiroshi Sugimoto and others, examining cross-generational realities of the assimilation of the concept of the west by Japanese culture.


Poetic Post-War
Illustrating the Post-War element of the sale are compositions by Kenzo Okada and Yayoi Kusama. Both artists experimented with the abstract expressionism of the time; Okada maintains a strong Japanese sensibility in his works, which he constructs with delicate, sensitive color tonalities. He exhibited with the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1953, along with Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Kusama, renowned for her polka dot patterns, places an innate autobiographical element into her works. Establishing herself at the forefront of the avant garde, her works were later shown alongside Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol.

Contemporary Creations
From Hiroshi Sugimoto’s expressive photography to Yoshimoto Nara’s quirky, cartoon-like fi gures, the Contemporary offering encapsulates a vast spectrum of influences, from surrealism to the influx of western culture into Japan. Playing with the effects created by using a camera to suspend reality, Sugimoto explores issues of life and death. Exposing time via his lens, his works combine both the conceptual and the philosophical. Pop artist Nara’s stylized, large-eyed figures are at once cute and horrifying. Endowing the Disney-like children and animals in his works with weapons, Nara subverts the stereotypical notion of animation. Building on the contributions of their post-war predecessors, each artist’s practice is rooted in Japanese culture but incorporates and interrogates aspects of its westernization.