Zeng Fanzhi

Beijing, Poly Art Museum, Group Exhibition: Poly Museum Inaugural Exhibition, 2007
Beijing, CourtYard Gallery; Shanghai, ShanghArt Gallery, Zeng Fanzhi 1993-1998, 1998, p. 47, illustrated in color

Singapore Art Museum, Zeng Fanzhi - Idealism, Singapore, 2007, p. 103, illustrated in color
I/We - The Painting of Zeng Fanzhi 1991-2003, Wuhan, Hubei, 2003, p. 161, illustrated in color 

This work is in a generally very good condition overall. The left and middle pannel do not seem to show any visible condition problems. The right panel has a tiny spot of protrusion in the canvas along the lower edge of the painting (appr. 22 cm from the left edge, just below the elbow of the figure). There is also one very minor spot of rubbing in the far upper right corner, as well as a faint vertical stretcher bar mark to the upper left side of the painting (appr. 5 cm long). Otherwise, the painting is in very good condition. The work was not examined under UV light. Each panel is framed and was not examined out of frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

A native of Wuhan in Hubei province, Zeng Fanzhi moved to Beijing in 1993 after completing his studies at the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts in 1991.  Shortly after his move to the nation's capital, Zeng began his first mature series of works.  In the Masks Series, expressively rendered figures with small bodies and huge heads and hands appear in a variety of contexts, always wearing white masks that obscure their identities.  It was a period, says the artist, when "everybody wanted to look good, but it also looked a bit fake.  I felt they wanted to change themselves on the surface, and these are the feelings that I represented in the earlier Mask series."^[1]  The triptych on offer is a fine early example of this body of Zeng's work.

Mask Series No. 11 (1996) consists of three canvases of equal size and similar subject matter.  The single male figure is centrally positioned in each work against a uniform blue background, seated before and leaning upon a shallow ledge that occupies the bottom of the picture plane; we see only his upper body, clad in a crisp white shirt and neat red scarf, indicating he is a member of Mao's Young Pioneers.  Dramatic lighting from the right leaves the left side of each figure in shadow and accentuates the modeling of each figure and his garb.  Although in each image the figure's face is hidden, we sense he is older than a child and that the triptych therefore embodies a curious game of role-playing that extends beyond the mask he wears.  In the image at left, the otherwise poised figure yells in dissatisfaction like an unhappy baby, his mouth wide open as he scowls at the viewer.  One notes that Zeng's masks are remarkably expressive and take on the facial expressions of their wearer, although the eyes, a window to the soul, are here indicated by crosses within circles, set in wide ovals that are part of the mask.  Zeng's central image is one of reflection and sorrow, as tears streak down the cheeks of the figure, whose slightly tilted head is cradled in the palm of his gargantuan right hand.  The figure in the image at right is, by comparison, a model of composure, peering calmly out at the viewer, his bee-stung red lips neither smiling nor frowning, the bridge of his nose defining the picture's central vertical axis.  His bony right hand, so far forward as to extend almost into our space, holds a bright yellow tulip, a Manet-like touch of yellow that completes the trinity of primary colors within the composition as whole. The narrow ledge upon which the sitter leans is a convention of Early Netherlandish portraiture, and the curious attribute of the yellow flower, as well as the triptych format, suggests a passing inspiration in painting of the past.  But whatever sources or predecessors we might identify, No. 11 is a quintessentially mid-90's work by Zeng Fanzhi.

In the range of emotions expressed, and with the artist's reflections about the series in mind, one might advance an allegorical reading of No. 11 in which the progress of the sitter from dissatisfaction to sorrow to composure represents the striving of the individual for worldly recognition and success.  For the only attribute that distinguishes one figure from the next is the insignia prominently safety-pinned on each left shoulder.  The dissatisfied figure at left has only one red stripe, the mournful central figure two, and the self-composed figure with the tulip three.  The insignia are those of leadership rank and responsibility from Zeng's grade school days, with each stripe signifying increasing status and importance.  As such, the triptych refers to the strivings of individualism amidst the communist collective that was latent but still present during the Cultural Revolution of Zeng's youth.  But if this reading is correct, the work is less a remembrance of decades past and the tribulations of childhood than an allegory of China in the 1990's, when status-seeking individualism and rampant materialism transformed the society.  One understands better Zeng's infantilization of a masked adult through grade school garb and sees in this fascinating tripartite image the artist's characteristic social critique.

[1] Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, "Zeng Fanzhi: Amid change, the art of isolation," [a review of the artist's recent retrospective exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum, April 30 - July 11, 2007], International Herald Tribune, May 7, 2007.