Lot 31W
Mariko Mori(B. 1967)Beginning of the End, Shanghai/China, 1997
15 February 2020, 12:00 PST
Los AngelesSold for US$1,912.50 inc. premium
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Mariko Mori (B. 1967)
Beginning of the End, Shanghai/China, 1997
laminated color Cibachrome, aluminum, wood and polyurethane foam
39 x 151 x 28 in.
100 x 400 x 71.1 cm.
This work is number three from the edition of three plus one artist's proof and one printer's proof. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
This lot is offered without a reserve.
laminated color Cibachrome, aluminum, wood and polyurethane foam
39 x 151 x 28 in.
100 x 400 x 71.1 cm.
This work is number three from the edition of three plus one artist's proof and one printer's proof. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
This lot is offered without a reserve.
Footnotes
Provenance
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Born in Tokyo in 1967, Mariko Mori is the daughter of an art historian and an inventor. In her practice Mori bridges the gap between these two professions in her innovative approach to artmaking, particularly her high-tech photographic techniques. Beginning of the End, Shanghai/China comes from Mori's Beginning of the End (1996-2006) series, in which the artist documented herself in a transparent acrylic Body Capsule of her invention placed in locales from across the globe, including urban developments and sites of natural beauty or cultural significance. These sites include significant geographical locations of the past, the present, and the future, including Teotihuacan (Mexico), Tiahuanaco (Bolivia), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Giza (Egypt), Sibuya (Japan), Shanghai (China), London (Great Britain), Paris (France), Hong Kong (China), New York (United States), Brasilia (Brazil), and Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Beginning of the End, Shanghai/China was photographed in Pudong, Shanghai and represents one of the multinational redevelopments of the present and future.
In her groundbreaking exhibition at Perrotin Gallery, Paris in 2000, this series was displayed alongside the Body Capsule as well as the immersive film documenting this series, known as Kink (1995—2000). For the performance aspect of this series of work, Mori dressed in a body suit and lay within the Capsule which in turn is subsumed by the scale of the surrounding landscape. Mori's static and detached presence within the transparent capsule suggests suspended time as an expression of immortality, or as a euphemism for death at the moment before afterlife. "Space and Time capsules attempt to achieve three or four- dimensional voyages in space. My approach is to perceive or sense various passages or potential spaces that connect our consciousness to another world." (Holland, Allison. "From Gothic Lolita to Radiant Shaman: The Development of Mariko Mori's Ethereal Personae." U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, no. 40, 2011, pp. 3–28.)
