Contemporary Art Asia at Sotheby’s

I had never gone to Sotheby’s prior to this visit, but I went to this auction house because I received an invite to check out the Creative Hong Kong in New York exhibit. I did very little research on this exhibit before going and from the research it caught my attention. I visited the exhibit that I intended to go check out and was a little disappointed, not at the displays. Merely it was because I thought the Creative Hong Kong in New York would take up an entire floor, but it was just in a very small section. I wished that there were more to see, which I think I would have enjoyed it more.
However, I did really enjoy the Contemporary Art Asia: China, Korea, Japan exhibit. For this exhibit there were more on display and showcased Asian art with a modern twist. One of the paintings that really caught my eye was an untitled Chinese painting done in oil on canvas by Liu Ye, which I found quite interesting. The painting had what seems to be a toddler with angel wings holding a really large goldfish almost the size of himself. At the same time trying to runaway from overhead planes that looked like dropping bombs. For this painting I am torn at which side to side with because I felt there was an optimistic side and a pessimistic side to look at this painting. The optimistic side, I believe that this painting is trying to show even though there is war, but there will always be hope and luck. Where the planes symbolize war and the toddler with wings of an angel as hope and in Chinese tradition goldfish represents luck. On the other hand, the pessimistic side, I felt since the toddler looks like he is trying to run away with the goldfish it seems to also be representing that there is no hope left and the luck has just turned away.
Another piece that I really liked is called Happy World created by Kang Ik-Joong. This piece is originated from Korea and it is made up of 144 painted wooden blocks. I like this piece because the colors used were very vibrant, which makes it seem happy. I personally believe that everyone defines happy differently, so I felt it would be the same for this artist. I realized that most of the wooden blocks had some sort of spherical object painted onto it. Also there are physical objects attached to some of the wooden blocks and I realized that most of them come in spherical shapes, which I believe that it might symbolize that happiness will always come back. There were also other figurines attached to other wooden blocks, but I think it is something that once made the artist happy or when he sees these figurines it makes him happy.
Another very interesting piece is Quotation from Mao Tse-Tung created by Xu Bing. When I approached this piece with what seems to be Chinese calligraphy, I found it not that special because I have seen many Chinese writings before. Once I took the time and studied the painting carefully I realized each calligraphy written character was not written in Chinese. It was an English word structured in the form of a Chinese character. I tried reading it, but I never had the chance to finish it because some words take a long time to figure out. I like how the artist translated a quote by Mao Tse-Tung from Chinese to English, yet still kept the words in the shape and form of Chinese characters.
I really like what I saw at Sotheby’s because all the pieces kept its origin, yet it has a modern and western side to it. Which allows people who do not know much about the Asian culture and can still relate to it.