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• Auction House:
  Webb's
• Sale Name:
  Important Paintings and Contemporary Art
• Sale Date:
  06 Dec 2011 ~ 6.30pm (NZ Time)
• Lot #:
  45
• Lot Description:
  Ralph Hotere
  Hotere, Hiroshima Mon Amour, acrylic and gold leaf on glass, 1992 Completed in 1992, Hiroshima Mon Amour is one of a number of works by Ralph
  acrylic and gold leaf on glass
  1040mm x 500mm
  signed Hotere, dated 92 and inscribed HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR in brush point lower edge; inscribed HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR in pencil on top edge of frame; signed Hotere, dated 92 - 93 and inscribed HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR, Title from the French/Japanese film directed
• Notes:
  Hotere, Hiroshima Mon Amour, acrylic and gold leaf on glass, 1992 Completed in 1992, Hiroshima Mon Amour is one of a number of works by Ralph Hotere that illustrate the artist's response to environmental and social issues. The title of the work, which can be translated to 'Hiroshima, My Love', combined with the unmistakeable mushroom-shaped cloud in the centre of the piece indelibly links the work to the nuclear disaster that resulted from the American bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Conversely, however, the title of the piece Hiroshima Mon Amour was similarly used as the title for an acclaimed French film from 1959. The non-linear film explored concepts of forgetfulness and memory and connected failed personal relationships to the bombing of Hiroshima. Like the film, Hotere's painting plays with memory and the passage of time insofar as it demands that the viewer cast their mind back to a catastrophic event that remains only in memory or, arguably, is now etched into the collective unconscious. As well as being an historic event, the nuclear disaster of Hiroshima still remains topical as debates over nuclear power continue to be waged and the possibility of devastation caused by nuclear fallout continues to be a concern. Such potent content renders Hotere's painting timeless and universally relevant while also connecting it to his earlier series Polaris from 1983 to 1984 that traced the artist's reaction to the potential destruction wrought at the hands of the Polaris nuclear missiles. The surface quality of Hiroshima Mon Amour, like the vast majority of Hotere's work, is of central importance to the overall visuality of the piece. The glass façade of the painting appears sleek, glossy and flat and Hotere has delicately offset the tenebrous ground with aurous patches that render the painting enchantingly majestic. As such, Hiroshima Mon Amour recalls the Black Paintings series of the late 1960s that have become almost synonymous with Hotere's name. Resplendent in their jet-black flawlessness and their impossibly perfect lines of thin colour, these works established Hotere's achromatic mastery. Like these earlier paintings, the technical execution of Hiroshima Mon Amour is key to the sumptuous finish of the painting that Hotere has achieved by adhering patches of gold leaf to the reverse of the glass panel and blanketing the remainder of the painting with a layer of black acrylic that has been scratched into in order to convey the dynamism of nuclear power. As a result, a finely navigated tension is viewed between the inky darkness of the glass panel, the almost ethereal trails of white and the glimmering, glistening patches of radiant gold. Despite the seemingly obvious contrast between light and dark in Hiroshima Mon Amour, the sweep of black, as is so often the case with Hotere's work, not only absorbs light but appears to contain and emit its very own. The glassy surface enables the pooled blackness to reflect and refract so that nuances of various forms and colours as well as light are seen shimmering across its surface. Questioning the seen and unseen, Hotere's elegantly sombre Hiroshima Mon Amour, pays an elegiac tribute to lives lost and times past while offering an invocation for environmental and social issues to remain at the forefront of both memory and contemporary concern; all of this is finely etched out in a glory of black and gold. JEMMA FIELD
• Estimate:
  NZ$70,000 - 100,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.