Kikuo Saito

DRAWING #339

1993
oil and crayon on paper
19 x 13 inches

Kikuo Saito moved to the US from his native Japan in 1966 at age 26 and worked as an assistant for Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, and Larry Poons. Throughout his long and varied career his work incorporated many of the styles and processes of the time—among them, Color Field, gestural abstraction, and calligraphic line work. His distinctive ability to make works that hover between image and abstraction are described by Hal Foster:

At once wholly visual and utterly philosophical, the art of Kikuo Saito prompts essential questions about drawing and painting—and makes them almost impossible to answer. What counts as a gesture, and when does it become a sign? How does a figure come to be, and does it always produce a ground in turn? […] How does an image appear, and can it be made to disappear at the same time—or, better, coaxed to linger in a limbo between these two states? By what criteria do we designate an image as representational or abstract, and might a drawing or a painting claim a space between or beyond these two realms?

Saito’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at KinoSaito, Verplanck; Fort Lauderdale Museum; Duke University Museum of Art, Durham; and Galerie Rüdiger, Schöttle, Munich, among others. His work can be found in the collections of MoMA, New York; the Whitney Museum, New York; Nasher Art Museum, Durham; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield; and Edmonton Art Gallery.

estimated retail value: $12,000

The TWO x TWO AUCTION will take place at The Rachofsky House on Saturday, October 19, 2024. Absentee bids must be received no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 18, 2024. If you are unable to attend TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art on Saturday, October 19, and would like to place a bid on a live or silent auction lot, you may complete the appropriate absentee bidding fields below. A TWO x TWO auction representative can bid on your behalf up to your pre-set maximum bid. If the work is part of the live auction, you may also be on the phone with an auction representative to place your bids during the live auction.

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