{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":41056,"auction_id":67,"set_id":95,"lot_number":"123","artist":"Ang Kiukok (1931-2005)","title":"Still Life - Table","starting_price":1800000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1970 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"30” x 40” (76 cm x 102 cm)","property":null,"coa":"This piece is accompanied by a certificate issued by Finale Art File and signed by the artist confirming the authenticity of this lot.","provenance":"Private Collection, Manila","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Alice Guillermo writes: “(Ang KiuKok’s) travel to Europe in 1965, with fellow artist and mentor Vicente Manansala was, for him, the best learning experience that he ever had. In his exposure to modern art, Picasso’s works proved to be a revelation for him: through them he discovered what painting was supposed to be and what he really wanted to achieve as an artist. For Ang  Kiukok, each painting always holds excitement, because when he takes up the brush, he cannot yet visualize how the  completed work will look. While staring with a general idea of the subject, the rest of the creative process is a continual  discovery and a lively dialogue between the artist and the canvas. Often, he does not hesitate to change or redo passages of his work in the pursuit of an inner vision. He does not believe in avoiding difficulty; he confronts difficult passages head on in order to bring them to a satisfactory resolution. This is probably why he never finishes a painting in one sitting, but deliberates on it for a length of time. Because of the long maturation process involved, his finished paintings possess a density of matière in the layers of pigment that result in a quiet sumptuousness of form, at the same time disciplined by the essential severity of the cubist style. Indeed, the oppositions of yang and yin are at the very core of his work.”   “Still Life”, from 1970, is among Ang KiuKok’s works that are more tranquil, restoring the world of the familiar, but nonetheless always with a strange and simmering temper. Ang KiuKok interprets still-life subjects with a strongly Cubist-derived abstraction (this work was done five years after his trip to Paris), eliminating almost all recognizable content, and severely reducing the  composition to raw, severely angular depictions of form. The blues and deep reds played out against sections of deep grays, whites and predominant blacks that form acute angles have a heightened surreal quality as of pittura metafisica that transcends the formality of the composition. Yet the painting balances his exposure to modern art in Europe with his mastery of oriental brush traditions, a reflection of the artist’s heritage. Ang Kiukok was born in Davao in 1931 to Chinese parents. His grandfather is from Fujian. Alice Guillermo writes: “Ang  Kiukok’s own name has an interesting origin. As Alfredo Roces recounts, he was first named Hua Sing, or “Chinese born.”   After finding out that a cousin’s son had the same name, his father began to cast about for a new name for his son.  At the time, the Japanese had invaded Manchuria. Anxious about the fate of China, his father renamed him Kiukok, or, ‘Save the  Country.’ “ About his brushstrokes, Alfredo Roces writes: “From the very start, Kiukok also infused a Chinese brush tradition to his approach in painting. His ink brush work on rice paper of swimming catfish tapped an ancient tradition drawn from his racial heritage. Thus, from the first magic moment he dabbled with the paintbrush, he infused into his imagery a respect for Chinese brush painting, and a disciplined approach to his oils.”  Ang Kiukok is known for the angst permeating his artworks, thus Guillermo discusses the irony behind the artist’s still lifes:  “Paradoxically, it is in these paintings that, of a more formalist allure, one particularly senses his art’s strong but gentle spirit arising from the semiotic relationship of the forms and their hues, their densities of texture, and the particularities of the image itself.” The colors are typical from the late sixties to the early seventies phase of his career: formal, almost structured compositions with somber colors and dark, mostly black backgrounds. After the late sixties, Ang’s Manansala inspired still lifes gave way to the violent and disorienting of a world menacing and askew.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":5500000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":5500000,"userBid":null,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":6424000,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":40199,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/67/95/lot/123.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":122,"next":124,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}