A collection of large format bottles of Tenuta dell’Ornellaia 2009 designed by Chinese artist Zhang Huang go under the hammer at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on Friday.
Zhang Huan has created an artwork for the the Ornellaia estate, a steel sculpture bearing the likeness of Confucius, as well as artwork for 100 double magnums, 10 imperials and one salamazar with a superimposed oval sculpture of the philosopher.
The bottles, of the estate’s Bolgheri Rosso Superiore.will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on 27 April and the proceeds donated to the H2 Foundation for Arts and Education.
Vendemmia d’Artista is Tenuta dell’Ornellaia’s art series, which aims to ‘celebrate the character’ of each vintage of the renowned Tuscan estate.
This year’s Vendemmia d’Artista is ‘L’Equilibrio’, referring to the balance of the 2009 vintage. Previous themes were ‘Energy’ (Rebecca Horn, Berlin, 2008), ‘Exuberance’ (Luigi Ontani, Milan, 2006) and ‘Harmony’ (Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh, New York, 2007).
Zhang Huan is one of China’s best-known and controversial artists, often falling foul of the authorities for the challenging nature of his work.
One of his pieces, the 2005 sculpture Donkey at the Saatchi Gallery in London, is described as ‘a kinetic sculpture featuring a farm animal humping the famous Jin Mao tower… Zhang’s icon of modernisation gets a literal (and very noisy) shafting from the beast of burden “proletariat”,’ the gallery’s notes say.
Written by Adam Lechmere
