Lot 1
  • 1

Shi Xinning

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
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Description

  • Shi Xinning
  • Christo's Temple of Heaven
  • signed and dated 2001; signed, titled and dated 2000-2001 on the reverse
  • oil on canvas
  • 200.7 by 170.2cm.
  • 79 by 67in.

Provenance

The Red Mansion Foundation, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Literature

Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi, China: Contemporary Painting, Bologna 2005, p. 120, illustrated in colour

Catalogue Note

Ostensibly reproducing a photograph of Mao Zedong with a delegation of officials at a public appearance, Shi Xinning's Christo's Temple of Heaven from 2000 is in fact a much more subversive statement in painting which wittily questions our automatic belief in the truth of the photographic image. While the greyscale and sepia border contrive to reproduce a vintage press photograph of historical events, closer scrutiny reveals the impossibility of the imagined scenario and through its incongruous humour it delivers a satirical parody of China's political climate.

Behind the line of smiling delegates, in all probability taken from a genuine source photograph, we see in the background the instantly recognisable form of Beijing's Temple of Heaven, the 15th-century Ming edifice built as a monument for emperors to offer sacrifice to Heaven. As the title suggests, however, the triple gabled Taoist structure has been enveloped by Christo and Jeanne-Claude's trademark use of fabric to 'wrap' public buildings. These ambitious projects have taken the duo around the world, and their list of projects includes the Pont Neuf in Paris, The Reichstag in Berlin, the Gates in Central Park, New York and the Biscayne Islands in Miami. On the one hand revealing Shi Xinning's awareness of the western practice of the masters of environmental art, the scene also forces us to reflect on the entrenched differences between East and West. For decades closed to the outside world, the Beijing of the 1960s - the implied date of the photographic source - could not have played host to Christo and Jeanne-Claude's environmental interventions which were anathema to the pragmatic spirit of the Cultural Revolution. Furthermore, the wrapping of buildings, which renders their usual functionality useless, questions Mao's dictum that a work of art must be useful to society. This postulate was responsible for effectively killing cultural advance in the People's Republic of China for two decades, resulting in the state endorsed socialist realist style which was at best propagandistic and at worst deeply mendacious. Through his anachronistic vision of cultural exchange, Shi Xinning forces us to reconsider the impact of Mao's isolationist policies on the cultural evolution of China. Yet by couching his polemic in ironic humour, the political message passes much more easily and we relish the eloquent delivery as much as the lesson it imparts.