"These paintings are perhaps based on a kind of obsession, an existential imagination, in the sense that Sartre writes of the youthful Jean Genet: the will to remember against all odds becomes too painful to endure and thus the revisions become not only a necessity, but a means of survival—a sublimation that Zhang has proved capable of enduring—and his art is a testimony that only he can tell."
Immense eyes of black marble escape the flattened confines of Untitled no. 1’s canvas, leaving a haunting imprint on its viewers; Zhang Xiaogang has painted a child simultaneously surprised, horrified, and a little hopeful. Inspired by the photography of China’s Cultural Revolution and the soft aesthetics of classical Chinese charcoal drawings, Xiaogang employs slight distortions of the child’s nose and mouth to create a surreal and dreamlike effect. Untitled no. 1 is an examination of the struggle for identity within a Chinese society that has and continues to heavily value mass conformity over individuality. The figure's features are anonymous, yet familiar and unforgettable. The stain of color under the child’s eye, perhaps a birthmark, perhaps a bloodstain, is as ambiguous and contradictory as the figure’s expression. As the artist describes, “… we live in a society that's very contradictory. I wanted to express this relationship between the individual and society. This kind of relationship is like a son who disobeys his father, yet unable to leave his family behind,” (Zhang Xiaogang & Anjali Rao, “Interview with Zhang Xiaogang,” CNN, 19 July 2007).
Born in 1958 in China’s Yunnan Province, Xiaogang grew up during China’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution; his work is internationally exhibited and celebrated for its examination of the lasting psychological and cultural aftershocks and trauma of the period’s political and social violence. Painted in 2003, Untitled no. 1 exemplifies Xiaogang’s artistic project and holds a place of extreme importance within his highly sought-after mid-career oeuvre.