$23 M. Worth of Art by Yayoi Kusama Sells in a Single Sotheby’s Auction
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Loading... - Lynne Jameson
- 25 Apr 2023
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A group of five works by Yayoi Kusama produced within the last 20 years sold on Wednesday for $22.9 million during a Sotheby’s evening sale in Hong Kong, bringing some of the artist’s highest auction prices ever.
Kusama was among the biggest names anchoring two back-to-back sales of modern and contemporary art, which by the day’s end generated HKD $1.52 billion ($192.8 million) and 11 new artist records.
Pumpkin (L), an oversized bronze pumpkin sculpture that Kusama’s studio produced in 2014, sold to a phone bidder on the phone with Nicolas Chow, the auction house’s Asia chairman. The piece went for HKD $62.64 million ($7.98 million), setting a new benchmark for a sculpture by the Japanese artist.
A-Pumpkin (BAGN8), a painting depicting the titular vegetable laden with black dots, brought a high price, going for HK$55.17 million ($7 million).
But it was another work that captured bidding attention: Kusama’s 2018 piece My Heart is Flying to the Universe, a work similar to her famed “Infinity Mirror Rooms.” The piece is a mirrored box with LED lighting; there is a face-sized hole cut into its exterior through which viewers can peer in. Although viewers cannot fully enter the piece, as they can with her popular “Infinity Mirror Rooms,” the piece still sold well, going for HKD $25.9 million ($3.29 million).
The Sotheby’s sale marked the first time a work like this had ever been sold in a public auction in Asia. The piece came from an anonymous seller who, according to the work’s provenance record, originally purchased it from David Zwirner. Bidders registered with Sotheby’s specialists online and over the phone vied for the work, which sold within its estimate for HKD $25.85 million ($3.29 million). Read More…
