Wang Guangyi

Acquired by the present owner directly from the artist

Karen Smith, Yan Shanchen, Charles Merewether, Li Xianting, Huang Zhuan and Lu Peng, Wang Guangyi, Beijing, 2002, No. 39, p. 109, illustrated in color

This painting presents several cracks from 5-8 inches in length scattered in a few spots throughout the work, mostly along the right side of the canvas. Some of these cracks are original to the work and this condition is linked to the working material of the artist at that time, as this is a very early painting. However, the cracks have been restored, stabilized, and flattened. The entire canvas has also been re-stretched and re-lined, so as to completely stabilize the work.
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.
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Known for his hard-hitting critique of Western consumerism and Chinese Communism, painter Wang Guangyi (b. 1957) has crafted an aesthetic vocabulary that blends brand names and political propaganda into powerful statements on life in contemporary China.  Whether it be the ubiquitous logo of Coca-Cola or of fashion house Chanel seamed with imagery of laborers or peasants culled from Cultural Revolution-era posters, Wang has combined the realms of advertising and politics into his artwork, producing paintings that are both humorous and deeply revelatory in equal measure.

The works included here follow Wang's signature style, albeit with some rare imagery that does not appear in most of his work.  For example, in an early work from 1990 titled J. L. David (Lot 25), Wang references Western art history directly, most likely thanks to his study of Western art history while a student at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts and thanks to the specific content of Jacques-Louis David's paintings, the artist that Wang directly pays tribute to here. Celebrated for his epic history paintings, the French superstar painter (1748-1825) David often looked to the political world around him for inspiration, resulting in such master works as The Death of Marat (1793) and The Coronation of Napoleon (1806).  In harkening David's name and including it as a brand-name logo in the lower left-hand corner of his work, Wang nods to his Western predecessor, while at the same time poking fun at the value of an artist's name to the art market in general.  Further, Wang acknowledges the power of the pen—and by extension the painted image as was so true in David's time—through the inclusion of three powerful hands grasping fountain pens in the upper portion of the painting.  Aimed at the mountainous Chinese landscape and female peasant with an explosive cartoon halo around her head below, these potential founts of information show that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, and that the message of art is one to be reckoned with.  Wang has jokingly placed a price tag in the lower right corner in the amount of 1,000 yen, perhaps an attempt to comment on the wealthy Japanese businessmen who were gobbling up Western art during that nation's much-discussed bubble economy.

Another early work from the artist's well-known "Great Criticisms" series, Kodak (Lot 26), also from 1990, again sees Wang taking up the pen as a symbol of power, and here in place of actual weapons themselves.  Two Communist soldiers hold massive fountain pens in the place of rifles or swords, while a laborer before them brandishes a huge shovel that has seemingly just unearthed not an archaeological treasure, but the Kodak film logo.  Again, Wang cunningly shows how the written word and art, represented here by Kodak's pictures, can literally move mountains.  As with his entire body of work, Wang's signature serial numbers cover most of the painting's ground, further hinting at the underpinnings of his thinking about art as it relates to consumerism.

In another work from the period, Des haricots verts, des fleurs, le gaz, une pomme (Lot 121), from 1993, Wang takes up a brightly hued color palette in blues and hot pink—rare for the artist—and combines imagery of Chinese peasants and laborers with a litany of French terms:  apple, flowers, green beans and gas.  As in the previous two works discussed, Wang again arms a laborer with a pen, but makes a rare gesture of including his serial numbers in a cartoon-like text bubble; consumerism becomes a political statement if nothing else.  Finally, in Great Criticisms: Longines (Lot 119) from the 1990s, Wang again heralds a luxury product, here expensive Swiss watches, by juxtaposing the brand's logo with a male laborer armed with a brush and a female peasant brandishing a cheerleader's horn.  As with all of the work discussed here, Wang Guangyi again shows that visual criticism is just as powerful as the written or spoken word.

-Eric Shiner