Vanity Fair UK - 11.2019

NOVEMBER 2019 VANITY FAIR ON ART

Artists in their Studios

t is 9pm in Marbella, the sun is setting over the

Mediterranean and I am having a chat over a glass of

Mauro Godello with Yukimasa Ida, my house guest

for a few days. Since we rst met at Art Basel Hong

Kong in March 2018, following a conversation on

Instagram, we have had two sell-out shows together: one at Asia

Now in Paris in October 2018 and one at Temple Beijing in March

2019. Due to the huge demand for his work, Yukimasa has been
      pushing himself to the limits to produce masterpieces of the future,
      leaving him in need of a break and seeking inspiration. Spain was
      an obvious choice. After visiting the Miró Foundation and the
      Museu Picasso in Barcelona, followed by Madrid’s Prado and
      Reina So‘ía, home to Picasso’s monumental Guernica, it’s time for
      some R&R on the Costa del Sol. Nearby Málaga has been investing
      in culture thanks to a concerted e–ort by its mayor and visits to
      the Contemporary Arts Centre, the Pompidou and yet another
      Picasso Museum, located in the artist’s birth town, are a must.
      Born in Tottori in 1990, Yukimasa took an early interest in art
      and graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2015. The
      son of the celebrated sculptor Katsumi Ida, Yukimasa’s painting
      style is diverse, and he works on several series at the same time.
      The guiding principle in his work is the concept of ichi-go ichi-e,
      meaning that each moment is a precise moment in time and once
      passed, it is gone. At rst drawing inspiration from his immediate
      surroundings, painting portraits of his wife and friends, he recently
      started to make tribute portraits of artists whose work he respects,
      including Picasso, Bacon, Warhol and Basquiat. Starting a new
      large painting without any preparatory drawing, he attacks the
      canvas by applying the paint generously in spontaneous, gestural
      and bold strokes, often smearing some areas while applying
      more paint on others. The resulting paintings are of tremendous
      dynamism and intensity—in contrast to the artist’s relaxed and
      good-humoured nature.
      Ida’s current priority lies in nishing a monumental commission
      from Yusaku Maezawa, the Ÿamboyant collector who splashed out
      $167.5m on just two works by Basquiat, while booking the rst
      private ride around the moon on SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket, in
      the company of several artists. Ida’s work measures 3.5m by 11m
      and will be one of the centrepieces of the museum Maezawa is
      opening in 2020, just in time for the Olympics—and well before
      Space X’s planned Moon excursion in 2023. Whether Ida goes to
      the moon or not, his career is already well on its way.

I

Spontaneous, gestural and bold: it’s all

about the “now” for the Japanese artist.

FABIEN FRYNS celebrates his dynamism

Photograph by OGATA

Yukimasa

IDA

COSMIC CAREER

Yukimasa Ida

photographed on

July 21, 2019, in his

studio in Tokyo

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