Hiro Ando
pandasan diamondsstrass
2011

Name: pandasan diamondsstrass
Brand: Hiro Ando
Price: 20795.91 USD
Availability: InStock

$20,795.91

About

Intentionally referencing Damien Hirst's diamond covered human skull and the 'Diamond Dust' works of Andy Warhol, this rare and important sculpture in the round is by famous Japanese Pop artist Hiro Ando. From an edition of just 8 , this stunning work depicts Ando's famous pandasan whose surface is totally covered with archivally hand-applied, shimmering crystals to imitate diamonds, playing with ideas of luxury, status, tradition, kitsch, and high versus low art in a fresh and exciting manner. Mint condition Shipped from France The artwork is dated, signed and numbered base of the sculpture ..../8 The artwork come accompanied with an original Certificate of Authenticity issued by the Studio of the Artist: CrazyNoodles and signed by the Artist This artwork come directly from the Artist's Studio : Studio CrazyNoodles The streets of Tokyo and the world of Manga inspire Japanese artist Hiro Ando to create bold, vibrant sculptures. A true polyvalent artist, Ando emerged in 1995 as an illustrator and quickly began executing works in a variety of different media including painting, digital media, sculpture, and video. In 2005 he and artist Saori Nakamishi founded the neo-pop artist studio collective “Crazynoodles,” now comprised of 10 artists. While his paintings depict the urban Japan landscape, Ando is known for lacquering his resin, bronze, or porcelain sculptures of cats in glossy paint and ornamentation; recurring characters such as “Sumocat,” “Big Samurai,” and “Robocat” are covered in diamonds, traditional Japanese patterns, and vivid colors. The various incarnations of Ando’s cats present a contemporary twist on the ever-present maneki-neko, or lucky cat. "Drawing on ideas of collectability and fantasy, Japanese artist Hiro Ando combines tradition with contemporary culture in his sculpture work…. Ando’s editioned sculptures resemble enlarged toy cartoon characters and bear the names SumoCat, Samurai Cat, UrbanCat, and RobotCat. They’re mainly monochrome and glossy, a few are enrobed in rhinestones or hand-painted. Ando’s work is the creative fruit of Japanese mass culture. adsense ban . His cat figures are reminiscent of maneki-neko (literally, “beckoning cat”), a ubiquitous Japanese cultural icon symbolizing good luck; maneki-neko figurines can be found in nearly every souvenir store and restaurant in Japan. Ando’s cats also resemble a masculine version of Hello Kitty, another emblematic feline character that originated in Japan. Ando’s work shares the neo-pop spirit of Jeff Koons’s balloon dog figurines and Takashi Murakami’s “otaku” sculptures, though Ando’s sculptures do not convey the overt eroticism and darkness that much of Koons’ and Murakami’s work do. Ando expresses a lighter side of neo-pop, highlighting that contemporary art can be both fun and have wide appeal“ Makiko Whole – Publications Coordinator at The Museum of Modern Art New York , New York Being a world-class metropolis, Tokyo is a place of endless happenings, beginnings, and a plentiful history. With so much to offer, it’s no wonder many find inspiration in its content, both present and past, and Hiro Ando is no exception. Depicting the scenery of the city with a traditional nuance, Ando adds the contemporary element into his paintings, drawings, and recently sculptural work, mostly influenced by the Japanese Manga. As one of the founding members of the CrazyNoodles collective studio, Ando and his work represent the light, fun side of the neo-pop culture. Merging Traditional With Contemporary Acquiring his degree from the University of Art, Hiro Ando began his prolific career in 1995 in Tokyo, depicting its nighttime urban landscape. With a lot of inspiration, the streets proved to be an endless source of material for his narratives which often included the red fish in addition to the urban background. The act of the red fish in his paintings greatly reminds of the ancient Japanese watercolor paintings, thus making his work permeated with both a contemporary and traditional feeling. With his artistic beginnings tied to illustration, he would draw several sketches before actually working on the canvas, and his practice has since spread to video material, digital support, and sculpture. Adding Sculpture to the Fold Being a multidisciplinary artist, Hiro Ando had added sculpture to his portfolio, creating artwork that furthers his conjunction of old and new. Built upon the traditional maneki-neko, standing for “lucky cat” within the Japanese mass culture, Ando constructs cat-like figures assuming various forms like samurai, sumo, and robot. Their outlook reminds of Japanese modern Manga, a world that influenced the youth of the artist profoundly, instilling Ando’s sculptures with a light, approachable line. Adding to it are the bright, often monochrome colors, and the smooth, shiny materials including resin, porcelain, bronze, and even diamonds, making his works representative of the contemporary neo-pop art. A Modern Samurai By adding the element of tradition to the popular Japanese culture, Hiro Ando creates an alluring portfolio that is easily paving its own road within the contemporary art world. Likable and easy on the eye, the cat-like sculptures became his signature mark and are uplifting Ando in the current art scene. Posing a new view on the traditional norms, Ando is a modern samurai of the Japanese art. Hiro Ando currently lives and works between Tokyo and Shanghai. What Is Kawaii? The Japanese concept of kawaii—best translated as “cuteness”—has grown from a national trend to a global phenomenon. Sanrio’s Hello Kitty has been valued at $7 billion; the Oxford English Dictionary named an emoji its 2015 Word of the Year; and Nintendo’s Pokémon Go recently became the most downloaded game in smartphone history. The kawaii movement is wide in scope, spanning Manga comics, Harajuku fashion, and Takashi Murakami’s “Superflat” artworks, but what’s behind the aesthetic, and why is it so popular? Japan’s culture of cute began in the 1970s with a youth movement developed by teenage girls, involving handwriting in a childlike style. The new script was given a variety of names, such as marui ji (round writing), koneko ji (kitten writing), and burikko ji (fake-child writing), and featured text with stylized lines, hearts, stars, Latin characters, and cartoon faces. Many scholars cite this trend as a reaction against the rigidity of post-World War II Japan, as the pursuit of kawaii enabled youth to find a sense of individuality and playfulness in an increasingly serious and depersonalized environment. While many schools initially banned this writing style, advertisers quickly caught onto the trend, using the new aesthetic to market products to the younger generation. In 1974, the stationary company Sanrio launched the character of Hello Kitty, printing the now-iconic whiskered white cat on a vinyl coin purse. Forty-two years later, Hello Kitty has been placed on over 50,000 products in more than 70 countries, including toaster ovens, alarm clocks, airplanes, and even sex toys. In 2008, Japan named Hello Kitty as its tourism ambassador, an official invite to the rest of the world to join in on the adorability binge that is kawaii. But Hello Kitty is not alone. In fact, each of Japan’s 47 governmental offices has its own kawaii mascot, such as the rosy-cheeked bear Kumamom for the bullet train and the wide-eyed Prince Pickles for the police force. Pokémon has developed another 700 kawaii creatures over the past 20 years, some of which are currently running virtually rampant in cyberspace. Emojis, bitmojis, and even those adorable Casper subway advertisements all take root in the kawaii philosophy. While kawaii characters are diverse, spanning species both real and imagined, they often follow a basic formula. Kawaii creatures have limited facial features—two wide eyes, a small nose, and maybe a dot for the mouth—rendering them emotionally ambiguous and enabling viewers to project upon them. (For this reason, iPhone emojis have been criticized as not kawaii enough by some Japanese consumers because they feature a greater amount of emotional specificity.) Almost always outlined in black, kawaii characters are pastel-colored, graphically simple, and childlike. Designed to elicit a sense of nostalgia, they often feature big heads and little bodies in order to match the proportions of infants and baby animals. Scholars have suggested that people grow attached to kawaii characters precisely because of their youthful nature, which elicits the evolutionary impulse to care for the young. “Hello Kitty needs protection,” the sociologist Merry White once explained. “She’s not only adorable and round, she’s also mouthless and can’t speak for herself.” Tamagotchis—a nostalgia-inducing timecapsule for those who came of age in the ’90s—are Japanese gadgets that epitomize this theory, as they require users to look after small digital pets that are sweet and helpless. Reportedly, some Pokémon Go users have opted out of evolving their pokémons, preferring to keep them in an infantile state rather than growing their powers. The effect of the aesthetic is also to return us to a childlike state. Many from the so-called kawaii generation also desire to be kawaii themselves, whether through infantile voices or juvenile dress. For example, the kawaiitrend of “Lolita fashion” promotes a Victorian style of clothing, ripe with innocent-looking petticoats, ruffles, pastel colors, and large ribbons and bows. Whether Lolita-kawaii is named after Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel or is Japanese in origin, however, is still a hotly debated topic. The Lolita aesthetic is not the only sub-brand of kawaii thriving today.Guro-kawaii (grotesque cute), ero-kawaii (erotic cute), kimo-kawaii (creepy cute), and busu-kawaii (ugly cute) have all emerged as alternatives to the more traditional style of Hello Kitty and Pikachu. Meanwhile, contemporary artists Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara have ushered kawaii into the fine arts, creating their own series of wide-eyed characters that range from the vapidly cute to the uncomfortably sinister. In his paintings and sculptures, Murakami reminds viewers that the style of kawaii carries with it a certain darkness. His depictions of cartoon mushrooms, for example, appear entirely joyous at first glance, but also recall the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For Murakami, the kawaii aesthetic acts as an enduring symbol of the infantilized nature of occupied Japan after World War II—a manner through which people found escape from the trauma of war. Since its beginnings, the kawaii craze has been a rebellion against the seriousness of adulthood—a counterbalance to the harshness of the real world. Under the strain of a polarizing election cycle, it is perhaps no wonder why over 15 million people have decided to temporarily tune out the news for a dive into Pokémon Go. The app invokes the child within, encouraging users to find imaginary friends and care for them, or at least so I’ve heard. This writer is still at level one. Sarah Gottesman

Details

Artist
Hiro Ando (1973, Japanese)
Creation Year
2011
Medium
Resin

Movement & Style
Contemporary
Condition
Excellent
Period
2010-

Dimensions
H 19.69 in. x W 17.72 in. x D 17.72 in.H 50 cm x W 45 cm x D 45 cm
Gallery Location
PARIS, FR
Reference Number
LU40233692312

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