Ayako Rokkaku’s ‘CUTE. WEIRD. FREE.’ at KÖNIG GALERIE

According to the Artnet Price Database, Ayako Rokkaku was the sixth best-selling Japanese artist of all time as of November 2022, behind Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami, Kazuo Shiraga, and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

The youngest of the six, Rokkaku is one of only five artists born after 1980 who brought in over US $5 million at auction in the first half of 2021, and her prices have continued to rise.

This incredible success had its roots, in part, in Europe—where she has lived since 2010, moving between Berlin, Porto, and Amsterdam. These days, however, her biggest sales come from Asia.

Nico Delaive, founder and director of Gallery Delaive, a modern and contemporary art gallery in Amsterdam, spotted the young talent almost 20 years ago and was among the first to represent her in 2006.

'Taking her work to local art fairs such as TEFAF Maastricht and Art Cologne, it was the locals who loved it,' he explains. 'They would be wanting to buy affordable prints to decorate their children's rooms.'

'However, the last three years have seen a major shift, with her market now especially strong in Asia,' he says.

He cites the deep-pocketed, Chinese collector Ding Yixiao among key contributors to this change. Visiting the gallery's booth at Art Miami in 2019, the budding collector was quick to purchase Untitled (2011), an acrylic on canvas measuring seven metres long, for his private museum, Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art in Rizhao, China.

Prices on the secondary market took off, and even on the primary market, they rose from five to six figures. It became apparent to Delaive that his local band of collectors would need to find works by another artist to decorate their kids' bedroom walls.

Rokkaku's top 20 auction results in the past three years all came out of Asia. The top three, all of which broke the US $1 million mark, were achieved in Singapore and Hong Kong in the last 18 months.

Rokkaku continues to exhibit in Europe, showing at KÖNIG GALERIE this summer.

Her third exhibition with the gallery, CUTE. WEIRD. FREE. (28 July–2 September 2023) features 15 canvases on the monumental walls of KÖNIG GALERIE's Berlin space, a former church built in the Brutalist style.

Featuring her distinctively stylised aesthetic that merges abstract painting and Japan's kawaii culture, the exhibition showcases Rokkaku's unrestrained, playful expressions that have propelled her figurative protagonists to worldwide acclaim.

With primary market prices ranging from €400,000 to €600,000, the show sold out; the gallery reports strong sales from both European and Asian collectors, along with increased interest from American collectors.

Rokkaku's aesthetic is distinctly Japanese, but now there seems to be global support for her work at the half-million dollar mark, even if her most expensive works are still scooped up by Asian collectors.

Rokkaku seems comfortable juggling her identity as a Japanese artist in Europe. Speaking to Artnet News last year, she said, 'I don't have to become a European living in Europe. I want to be myself, to absorb different cultures while enjoying the differences.'