Zeng Fanzhi

Hyundai Gallery, Seoul
Opera Gallery, Geneva
Acquired from the above by the present owner

This work is in good condition. The paint layers are bright and intact. Under UV light inspection, there are no signs of retouching. Upon very close inspection, there is a 2mm tear to the bottom edge of the canvas about 3cm from the right edge. On original canvas, not re-lined.
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Unmasking Zeng Fanzhi

“Zeng’s secret of striking an emotional cord with viewers lies in his ability to liberate us from the rigid framework of culture-specific iconography. An icon, whether religious or secular, typically achieves its distinctive status by imbuing the content of the image with preconceived meaning of great cultural significance. For Zeng, however, there is no cultural boundary to his brilliant rework of many iconographies.” Chiu-Ti Jansen, “Unmasking Icons: Zeng Fanzhi’s Retrospective in Paris,” in Chinese Elements, sothebys.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 January, 2014.  

In a mere two-decade artistic career since 1991, Zeng Fanzhi has gain unparalleled acclaim, critically and commercially, in the Chinese contemporary art world. While Mask series remains the most recognizable among his oeuvre, Zeng’s striking vision and unyielding power of expression shine through every phase of his artistic development. His renown began in the uncompromising brushstrokes and haunting depiction of apathetic doctors found in his early Hospital series. The Meat series followed, with its dizzying reds, raw lacerations, and the visceral impact reminiscent of Francis Bacon. Then came his Mask series where any semblance of community is overshadowed by ubiquitous falsehood, on his subjects’ barred eyes, masked faces and in the ever bolder coloured backgrounds. Zeng’s relentless journey of reinvention brought us then to We series and many portraits and most recently, to Landscape series – powerfully energetic works that fuse figurative and landscape allusions with gestural abstraction.

Zeng’s Portrait No.1 and Marilyn (Lot 247 and 248) in the present sale, both created in 2004, stand at the pivotal period when Zeng was seeking a way to systematically “unmask” his subjects and to approach an even more directly expressionistic language. Portrait No.1 is a brilliant example of Zeng’s “unmasking” process. On the one hand, the removal of masks represents a willingness to engage with a world without barriers, hence the larger-than-life self-portrait, gazing unrelentingly upon the observer.  The dramatization of the artist himself and his psyche is immediate. So strong is the emotional impact that viewers are compelled to step back upon first look. On the other hand, this seemingly more direct interaction with the world is one that is complex at best, hence the frenzied swirls, circular scrapings that scour along Zeng’s entire visage. His eyes are smudged by a whitish shadow, speckled with subtle red and blue hues, as if the closer the viewers come to the canvas, the less comprehensible his face becomes. The act of “unmasking” therefore reveals as much as it conceals.

The method associated with this dualistic “unmasking” process is the experimental wet-on-wet technique that requires “no time to think” and “no time to step back”. (Richard Shiff, Every Mask Its Mask, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 2010, p.15) The other method is painting simultaneously with two brushes in one hand; while one brush creates, the other disrupts, lending to the ambivalent notion of calculation and chance.  

The inward “unmasking” of the artist himself also launched a new quest for identity outward. In another work on offer (lot 247), Zeng turned to a favorite American pop personality – Marilyn Monroe. The choice of Warhol’s favorite pop icon is both daring and fitting. Throughout his career, Zeng has painted Andy Warhol numerous times, whose visage alone encapsulates a dualistic “unmasking” process: the revealing of one’s intimate self yet remaining only at the over-reproduced surface. Warhol radically asserted that the surface was all we needed to know, while Zeng has sought to find a language for the expression of what’s hidden beneath the surface. Hence the masking and unmasking. In Marilyn, gone are the glossiness, the Pop, the in-your-face seen on Warhol’s canvases, what is made apparent is a web of ecstatic, fluid strokes. Against a dark evening sky, the bright figure of Marilyn emerges through the pure indulgence of lines that coalesce into a recognizable form.

Based on a photograph of Marilyn descending a car to attend the premiere of Walter Lang’s There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), the painting tells the same story of red-carpet glamour, yet the mood seems more somber. Hues of bright colors explode around Marilyn’s golden locks, resembling the lasting impressions left by camera flashes on our eyes, unsettling, blinding. The car door alludes to the human presence outside the painting surface, yet the deep blue sky seems to dispel any such interpretation. This Marilyn is glamorous, yet alone; she’s angel-like, yet enveloped by darkness. What is supposed to be a high-gloss, high-definition fashion photography, through Zeng’s transformation, turns into a melancholic and uncertain impression of a star long gone.  

Zeng’s post-2000 paintings display less investment in metaphor and symbols. Instead, Zeng relies on his experimental brushstrokes to explore his own feelings on chosen subject. Zeng’s transition to landscapes therefore can be seen as an extension of artist’s interest in consciousness, one that is projected onto the outside world. Both Self-Portrait and Marilyn are works rich in their investigations of iconographic representations. They unmask themselves and invite us to implicitly distrust icons as deliberate cultural or manipulated political constructs. The temptation to succumb to the seduction of these icons nonetheless remains an appealing aspect of these works.