HONG KONG.- On view through 27 September, PSYCHO: Identity Alienation Shadow Duality examines the tensions, desires and contradictions that lie beneath the surface of modern life. Drawing on the psychological language of cinema and literature, the exhibition explores how obsession, vanity, fear and ambition can fuel artistic innovation while revealing the darker realities concealed behind outward appearances.
Bringing together an exceptional group of works from around the world, PSYCHO features museum-quality loans from important private collections alongside major highlights from Sotheby's Modern & Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions on 28 - 29 September. The exhibition includes masterpieces rarely seen in Asia by the likes Frank Auerbach, James Ensor, Jan Toorop, Paula Rego and Hans Bellmer; large-scale installations by Lee Bul, David Altmejd and Alicja Kwade; and significant auction works by Mark Rothko, Yayoi Kusama and Yoshitomo Nara. Highlights include Yoshitomo Nara’s auction debut of The Crated Room in Iceland / Drawing Room which has remained hidden from public view for more than fifteen years, and top lot of the season; Mark Rothko's Untitled (Plum and Dark Brown), a monumental two-metre canvas that exemplifies the intimate and human scale the artist regarded as essential to revelation.
Nicolas Chow, Chairman of Sotheby's Asia, said: “Since opening Sotheby's Maison, our ambition has been to establish a cultural destination where audiences can encounter extraordinary works of art in new and meaningful ways. With PSYCHO: Identity Alienation Shadow Duality, we have brought together museum-quality works sourced from across the world, from important loans generously shared by private collectors to landmark works from our forthcoming Modern & Contemporary Art auctions. Many of these works are rarely seen in public, and their presentation together allows us to deepen the exhibition's exploration of the psychological forces that shape the human condition. Open to all, the exhibition reflects our ongoing ambition to establish Sotheby's Maison as a centre of culture, discovery and artistic exchange in Hong Kong and beyond.”
Beyond the visual spectacle of Yoshitomo Nara's debut installation and Mark Rothko's towering canvas, PSYCHO brings together a remarkable group of large-scale works that expand the exhibition's exploration of the human condition. Lee Bul's Heaven and Earth reflects on political history and national identity through the image of a shattered, white ceramic-tiled bathtub, while David Altmejd's fragmented sculptural forms explore shifting states of transformation and perception. Alicja Kwade's Conversion in Perspective examines time, space and materiality through the precise arrangement of double-sided mirrors, juxtaposing raw materials with their man-made brass and metal counterparts. The exhibition further explores the elusive recesses of the inner self through artists such as Yayoi Kusama, whose personal hallucinatory neuroses found expression through transcendental self-obliteration, and Matthew Wong, whose sublime landscapes functioned as the artist's inner sanctuary, alongside Frank Auerbach's important early portrait of fellow artist Leon Kossoff and Paula Rego's psychologically charged explorations of family trauma.
Extending this dialogue beyond the visual arts, PSYCHO also presents first-edition copies of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho and a 17th-century edition of Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, exploring literary themes of alienation and despair. Together, these works offer a multifaceted examination of identity, perception and the psychological forces that shape human experience.
Evelyn Lin, Chairman, Modern & Contemporary Art, Sotheby's Asia, said: “Following an exceptional first half that delivered record results across our global sales, this season brings one of the most exciting and diverse offerings to come to market in Asia. Leading the season is Mark Rothko's Untitled (Plum and Dark Brown), a monumental two-metre canvas that anchors our curated exhibition PSYCHO: Identity Alienation Shadow Duality, while Yoshitomo Nara's The Crated Room in Iceland / Drawing Room, fresh from attracting long queues during its recent exhibition in Taipei, makes its highly anticipated auction debut after being hidden from public view for more than fifteen years. Together, these works reflect the caliber, rarity and breadth that define the season, building on the strong momentum seen across our global sales platform.”
Created in 1964, Untitled (Plum and Dark Brown) belongs to Mark Rothko's defining late period, when the artist turned increasingly to dark, reduced palettes in pursuit of ever-greater emotional and spiritual intensity. Painted just before the landmark Rothko Chapel series, the work shares the monumental scale, restrained composition and contemplative atmosphere that would come to define one of the artist's most celebrated achievements. Far from an expression of darkness alone, the painting invites moments of profound introspection and heightened awareness. In PSYCHO, it serves as a powerful embodiment of the exhibition's central theme, revealing how layers of complexity, contradiction and inner experience often reside beneath seemingly quiet surfaces.
For Yoshitomo Nara and Yayoi Kusama, appearances are rarely what they seem. Beneath Nara's deceptively innocent figures and Kusama's dazzling visual spectacles lie complex explorations of identity, obsession, vulnerability and psychological tension.
Behind the angled eyes and rosy cheeks of Yoshitomo Nara's Present (1994) stands a child clutching a small blade, embodying the tension between innocence and defiance that defines the artist's practice. The earliest canvas to depict Nara's iconic child in full figure against a monochromatic backdrop, the work marks a pivotal moment in the artist's development, with its facial features foreshadowing his later, more refined style.
Measuring 180 by 150 centimeters, it is one of only two monumental knife-bearing canvases from the 1990s, alongside Nice to See You Again (1996), and serves as a precursor to the celebrated Knife Behind Back (2000), where the weapon retreats from view. Painted just before Nara's move from Dsseldorf to Cologne and ahead of his breakthrough Tokyo exhibition in 1995, the knife is more than a symbol of aggression, it suggests a quiet act of resistance, introducing the archetypal "little hero" who would come to define Nara's oeuvre: vulnerable yet resilient, confronting a turbulent world on their own terms.
Hidden from public view for more than fifteen years, Yoshitomo Nara's The Crated Room in Iceland / Drawing Room is among the most significant and immersive works ever to appear on the market by the artist. Created at the height of Nara's pioneering collaboration with graf, the installation transforms the conventional experience of viewing art into an intimate encounter with his creative universe.
Built around a sculptural structure fashioned from shipping crates, the work invites visitors into a room composed of 97 drawings and personal objects, including chairs and a CD player, with a large billboard painting presented alongside it. Together, these elements form an integrated environment that recreates both Nara's studio and his inner visual world, moving beyond the experience of encountering a single image at a distance. The 97 unique drawings, some executed on both sides, encompass a wide range of motifs, from feisty children and anthropomorphic characters to houses, puddles and mountains. The ensemble has been described as a complete lexicon of Nara's most iconic imagery.
During his brief decade-long career, Japanese artist Tetsuya Ishida produced just 217 paintings before his untimely death in 2005. As a result, his works rarely appear at auction, making early paintings such as Can't Fly Anymore particularly sought after. Exploring the hopelessness and uncertainty that followed Japan's "bubble economy" collapse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, his paintings captured the anxieties of a generation.
Painted in 1996, Can't Fly Anymore marks a pivotal moment in the artist's development, introducing the distinctive visual language that would come to define one of the most singular voices in contemporary Japanese art.
At the centre of the composition is Ishida's iconic everyman figure, often interpreted as a stand-in for the artist himself. Perched atop a rusting pirate-ship amusement ride, the protagonist mimics the gesture of flight while remaining confined within a mechanism that no longer functions. Poignant and darkly humorous, the figure becomes both rider and ride, embodying the contradictions of a generation confronting diminished prospects and an uncertain future.
Created at a time when many of his peers pursued stable corporate careers, Ishida chose the more uncertain path of painting, channeling the social realities of contemporary Japan into a highly personal visual language. Inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's Le Bateau ivre (The Drunken Boat, 1871), the painting already displays the fusion of human figures and mechanical structures that would become the artist's hallmark. Through the image of the rusting pirate-ship ride, Ishida explores themes of drifting, disillusionment and exile, while the derelict apparatus echoes the poem's hallucinatory imagery and weary longing.
