Zeng Fanzhi

Zeng Fanzhi’s early work, begun while still at the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, concentrated on a heavily expressionist style and dark subject matter—hospitals, people waiting aimlessly, figures posing with hanging carcasses of beef.  In 1994, the artist changed his approach and began to paint people with masks, a simple but remarkably fruitful new trajectory that the artist continues to pursue to this day. 

With the “masks” series, Zeng has produced a wide-ranging body of work, with images devoted primarily to simple acts of daily life: walking a dog by the sea, sitting behind a desk, or simply posing for a portrait, whether as individual or group.  In each case, the figures are painted with a mask that covers a large part of the face, yet not so obtrusively as to obscure emotions.  The countenances of the masked sitters may be introspectively pensive, uproariously happy, or violently grimacing; indeed, one is impressed by the range of emotions Zeng is able to conjure within this restrained, repeated format. 

Zeng’s masks quickly became iconic images of contemporary Chinese art, as both foreigners and contemporary Chinese themselves sought portrayals of the new Chinese reality, based upon the country’s increasing economic success and global prominence and the changes this wrought on people’s lives.  Zeng has spoken of the necessity of maintaining a hidden self in today’s society, writing in an artist’s statement that, “No one appears in society without a mask. Or is this perhaps just the awkwardness of modern people?”  In a culture that is changing so quickly, it is perhaps inevitable that Zeng’s portraits should conceal themselves from close scrutiny, responding appropriately, as the sitters must, to whatever varying circumstance may come along.

In a 1997 painting of a young couple, Mask Series No. 11 (Lot 12), what seems to be a young man and woman embrace in a field of flowers. Wearing the ubiquitous red scarf of school children, the pair stares back at the viewer, their gazes and features impassive despite the intimacy of their contact. While the emotional range of Zeng’s sitters is often retained, the masks do tend to obscure gender differences. In the case of the 1997 work, it is difficult to tell if the couple is heterosexual; the only clue to gender lies in the more feminine coif of the figure on the left. Both have similar, oversized hands -- another element of Zeng’s signature style -- which compliment the masks and distance viewers from emotional engagement with the depicted figures.  The single-color background, a mustard yellow, intensifies our feeling that the couple is isolated and beyond reach, even if they have had the luck to find each other and return our gaze in unison.  Can they be miming happiness? Do they intend to be our mirror? It is hard to tell, and that is a major point made by most of Zeng’s classic “Mask” series paintings.

In more recent years, Zeng has developed his painterly practice in a variety of new directions.  In an Untitled tondo of 2003 (Lot 14), Zeng retains the dry surface qualities and graphic clarity of his masks series for a striking portrait of a figure who seems to hail from the bohemian intelligentsia, of which the painter himself is a part. While the figure’s large eyes peer out in an almost mask-like expression, the intensity and focus of his gaze, his shock of unruly, graying hair, and his casual black jacket and white t-shirt define this sitter’s individualism and personal style.  And the dramatic sunset hues of his complexion seem to radiate the sitter’s interior intensity.  The work shows Zeng as a master of contemporary portraiture and might almost be an icon of the so-called “creative class” – the artists, writers, and other creative types who are easily recognized whatever their urban location around the world.  One might even say that Zeng’s artistic choices – in terms of both subject matter and painterly expression – achieve an internationalism that would be diminished if the artist had painted the sitter with traditional Chinese materials or overtly Chinese points of reference.

And yet the artist is clearly interested in this very sort of conundrum – the legibility of expression as bodied forth in paint by an identifiably Chinese artist.  Just as a large audience exists for his Western-influenced painting, some of his themes have also incorporated Western people.  Indeed, he has painted an entire series devoted to Andy Warhol!  But in other recent work, Zeng focuses on a grass-script style, derived from Chinese calligraphy traditions, to portray both Westerners and Asians.  In this sense, the artist’s practice springs from the rich mélange of contemporary culture.

In a major work of 2003 (Lot 13), a triptych reiterates the same male face in each large panel.  Zeng has painted the images in We No.9 work in decreasing focus, rendering the left image most clearly and the right-hand canvas in virtual abstraction. The brush strokes, however, consist of horizontal ellipses laid down in narrow vertical rows, and from close range, the underlying image is indiscernible even in the most ‘representational’ of the paintings.  At a further distance, the canvases brilliantly resolve into eyes, nose, and face in a manner reminiscent of the later work of Chuck Close.  In Zeng’s canvases, too, the freedom of the individual brushstroke is maintained as – despite the repetitive regularity of the stroke – both line and color are liberated from overtly mimetic functions.  Abstract at close proximity, strikingly realistic at greater distance, the triptych is a tour de force that re-instigates discussion about the role of brushwork and abstraction in representational art.

A large landscape entitled A Good Fellow of Lakes and Rivers No. 4 (2001, Lot 15) is the final work on offer.  It consists of a mountainous range in the distance with a body of water to the left middle-ground and foreground.  The mostly whitish planes of the range are outlined and highlighted in black, the shadows of the rocks seemingly represented by skillfully poured drips in the lake-like area in the foreground.  And maybe it is the “good fellow” of the work’s title we can just make out sauntering up towards the highest peak at left center.  Yet whatever we see in terms of distance, space and natural topography derives from the conventions of painting and its viewing; the work itself is entirely abstract.  Perhaps a reference to the exquisite balance between nature and abstraction in the works of Zao Wou-ki or Chu Teh-chun, No. 4 offers its own romantic view of nature and painting itself, amply demonstrating Zeng’s consummate skill and diversity.  While lesser known than other works, No. 4 testifies to the Chinese love of nature and its continuing importance in artistic practice, here expressed in a remarkably intuitive fashion. 

While Zeng works with both contemporary subject matter and historical themes, both realistic representation and abstraction, the range of works on offer suggest that it is painting itself that most interests this fascinating, prodigious talent whose work continues to develop.

-Jonathan Goodman