A group of five works by Yayoi Kusama produced over the past 20 years sold for $22.9 million on Wednesday at Sotheby's evening auction in Hong Kong.
Pumpkin (L), a massive bronze pumpkin sculpture that Kusama's studio produced in 2014, was sold to a bidder over the phone with Nicolas Chow, president of the Asia auction house. The piece fetched 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, fetched a hefty price tag, coming in at HK$55.17 million (US$7 million).
But it was another work that caught the eye: Kusama's 2018 play My Heart is Flying to the Universe, a work similar to his famous "Infinity Mirror Rooms". The piece is a mirrored box with LED lighting; there is a face-sized hole cut into its exterior through which spectators can peer. Although viewers cannot fully get into the play, as they can with his popular “Infinity Mirror Rooms”, the play still sold well, going for HKD$25.9 million (US$3.29 million).
At the age of 94, Kusama has reached a new level of popularity in the market. In 2020, writer Greg Allen likened its cult status to something like a "Kusama industrial complex" within the world of galleries and museums. She is currently the subject of a retrospective at the M+ museum and a widely publicized Louis Vuitton campaign.
The high prices for works by Kusama sold during the auction paint a clearer picture of the current state of the Hong Kong market than data from the 2022 edition of the UBS Art Basel Report, released earlier this week. The market in Asia is ailing, with China's strength undermined by a prolonged period of restrictive Covid policies that have only recently eased. Sales in the region fell 14% to $11.2 billion, the lowest since 2009.