- 765A
Zhang Xiaogang
Description
- Zhang Xiaogang
- Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II
oil, cotton tape and black and white photocopies collage on canvas
THIS IS A PREMIUM LOT. CLIENTS WHO WISH TO BID ON PREMIUM LOTS ARE REQUESTED TO COMPLETE THE PREMIUM LOT PRE-REGISTRATION 3 WORKING DAYS PRIOR TO THE SALE. BIDnow ONLINE BIDDING SERVICE IS NOT AVALIABLE.
signed in Pinyin and Chinese and dated 1992, framed
Exhibited
Literature
Jiangsu Huabao, China, Jiangsu Fine Arts Publishing House, 1992, Issue 12, p. 9
Chinese Oil Painting Archive 1954-2000, edited by Zhou Li and Yu Ding, China, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, December 2002, p. 1534
Nine Lives-The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China, USA, Scalo Publishers, p. 287
One Hundred Chinese Contemporary Art Collections-Zhang Xiaogang, Awakening amid Fantasy and Reality, China, Modern Press, p. 70
Art Value, China, September Issue, 2009, p. 60
Condition
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II
Written by Karen Smith, renowned art critic and curator of contemporary Chinese art
Although it did not appear so at the time, 1992 proved an important year for Zhang Xiaogang. Not least, for a pair of paintings, titled Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I and II, produced at the end of what had been a long period of intense philosophising about the nature of contemporary art. A central concern was the artist's own place within the increasingly "pop" and "cynical realism"-styled schools that were appearing in Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan at the hands of Fang Lijun, Yang Shaobin, LI Shan, Yu Youhan, and Wang Guangyi. Zhang Xiaogang saw himself as a "traditional" painter, with very "traditional" concerns, and had begun to feel out of step with the "modernism" that was unfolding around him. The state of modern art had been revealed in 1989 at the China/Avant Garde exhibition in Beijing. Zhang Xiaogang's work, some of the most beautiful examples of his early spiritual imagery on paper, seemed dwarfed by the scale of the other works, and by the presence of a number of large installation pieces. This, together with the powerful impact of events later that year in June in Beijing, forced the artist to believe a new direction was required. It took a couple of years, but in retrospect Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I and II were exactly the result of that belief.
Immediately prior to the creation of these two works, which each depict a tiny baby, placed alone in a nebulous, shadowy space, Zhang Xiaogang created a group of portraits of friends. In these portraits, the figures gaze directly out at the viewer, from a shadowy greyish background similar to those of Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I and II. In the 1980s, as China's modern artists embraced western philosophy, the works of Nietzsche had been met with particular enthusiasm. The appeal lay in Nietzsche's "affirmation of the worth of the self, essential as a balm for the numbed souls of the Chinese in the aftermath of the tragedies of the Cultural Revolution."[1] June 4 provided a compelling reason for reasserting the "affirmation of the worth of the self". Yet, as had been demonstrated in the poetic, spiritual works form the late 1980s, Zhang Xiaogang was generally inclined towards structuring a narrative using a wide and varied range of slightly obscure symbols. In the 1980s this followed much in the vein of the "misty" poets approach to metaphysical images, of which Bei Dao and Shu Ting were extraordinarily successful. It was through the juxtaposition of the symbols or motifs in a painting that he could best achieve the aura he strove for.
Almost from the first, Zhang Xiaogang was an extremely literary, poetic painter. He was something of a writer himself; publicly, through letters exchanged with friends and privately, in a personal diary. As the poet in him is evident in the pictures, so the artistic vision streams out from his words as he reveals inner thoughts in a direct and yet simple manner, with a logic that is compelling, enforced by an underlying anxiety or, at times, despair that is heartfelt. This is evidenced in letters from the first half of 1992, written as Zhang Xiaogang prepared to travel to Germany, his first sojourn abroad. His departure was delayed by the complicated process of preparing the necessary documentation, but he had also promised the art critic Lv Peng that he would produce works for an exhibition Lv was organising for October that year; the First Guangzhou Biennial, Oil Painting in the 1990s. Thus, it was that all these factors, emotional, artistic and practical, converged in the two paintings Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I and II.
Following the conclusion of the First Guangzhou Biennial, Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II was one of a number of works that fell into private hands. Aside from a handful of reproductions in catalogues of the Zhang Xiaogang's works Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I and II remains a work with which the public audience is barely familiar, even where today we can see how the motif of the baby has become so central to what is understood of Zhang Xiaogang's distinctive visual vocabulary. Thus, in the first years of the 2000s, when Zhang Xiaogang began work on a series of photographic images he titled Descriptions. Initially, to those who knew him as the internationally renowned painter of the Bloodlines / Big Family series, the photographic works suggested a significant departure from the iconic style that his audience had both come to love and to expect. This, however, was not the case. The novel aspects of the photographic images Zhang Xiaogang were, in fact, entirely familiar elements of an earlier phase of his artistic expression: a language he brought to expressing the troubled emotions that surrounded his own artistic transition from the 1980s into the 1990s, and the anxiety that pervaded society following the unsettling events of June 4th in Beijing. In 1990, around the same time he began experimenting with the portraits of friends—Ye Yongqing and Mao Xuhui—Zhang Xiaogang titled this then new series of oil painting Private Notes.
Private Notes is indeed an apt phrase for the ambiguous, rather surreal compositions, which brought together a curious range of disembodied heads, limbs, and objects to achieve a mood of disquiet and suffering, of fragility and melancholy. The anxiety that lay behind the experience of this period was both cerebral and emotional: Zhang Xiaogang had begun to question the purpose of art and, in terms of his own cultural framework, exactly what type of art a modern Chinese artist could be expected to create. This questioning, rooted in his sense of fragility and melancholy, would continue to suffuse even the Bloodlines / Big Family works, which are in some regard softer, whilst powerful, examples of Zhang Xiaogang's oeuvre to date. As the series evolved, disquiet was never far away: even as the Bloodlines / Big Family imagery caught the imagination of an international viewing public, Zhang Xiaogang was perennially engaged in a private struggle to fulfil the ambitions he wished his artistic language to achieve. The air of melancholy is a particularly intense ingredient of Descriptions. But what most intensifies that feeling is the text that accompanies the images: text which is drawn directly across the surface of the photograph. This produced, in a sense, a new set of "private notes", similar in content and aura to the 1990-91 series, but relevant to the changed, and changing, circumstances of life in China in the new millennium.
The point of contrasting Descriptions with Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II is that the photographic works are a poignant development of the intensely private personal world and views of the artist found in Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II, which was produced a decade earlier in 1992. But where Descriptions presented viewers with clearly legible written accounts of the artist's thought processes, Zhang Xiaogang latterly allowed viewers to understand just how complex the thoughts and emotions brought to earlier phases of his painting were and, in particular, to pivotal compositions such as Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II.
The first impression of Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II is surely one of fragility. The placing of a baby, a vulnerable condition of life, on a hard wooden box, strikes a note of fear in the heart of every parent. Yet, this is art and, therefore, our fear is mitigated: this child is a metaphor, a symbol of human existence and to understand its predicament we needs must read the signs Zhang Xiaogang has provided for us. From a Christian perspective, that the baby lies on a cushion of cloth invokes the image of the Christ child. Indeed, his gaze is directed—by a familiar disembodied red-coloured hand—towards an open book which one might assume to be a Bible or book of faith. It could as easily contain a spiritual alchemy as history. How this is read depends upon the viewer's identity, experience and personality and, of course, the viewer's ability to read Chinese characters, for here, similar to those later photographic works, is an early example of the artist writing directly on one of his compositions, and to the viewer, in the form of a personal diary. Although, in its entirety, not all of the text is made explicit, neither here nor on the open pages of a second book that is "hung" on the wall amidst the collage of photos, and which surely quotes one of Zhang Xiaogang's favourite philosophers, or lyricists, or which there are many.
To assist further with a reading of Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II, Zhang Xiaogang incorporated an array of additional clues into the composition, found nominally in the black and white representations of the distinctive social portrait photography of the early decades of the People's Republic. These take the form of monochrome photocopies of the original photographs, which have been glued to the canvas and, thereby, to the "wall" directly behind the baby. The use of photographic images as remarked in Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II marks the first systemic exploration of Chinese-styled portrait photography in Zhang Xiaogang's painting which, by 1994, had established its significance for his next period of development within the Bloodlines / Big Family series.
Being numbered two as per its title, a first painting naturally precedes this "yellow" baby version[2] of Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II. Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I offers an almost identical composition to its sister painting Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II, but with several obvious differences in the details. The first depicts the baby in a semi-seated position, gazing out at the viewer but with no clear expression beyond a vague sense of curiosity or surprise. This is the very essence of innocence: the plank page upon which a new "chapter" can be written. Similar to the yellow reclining baby in Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II, the red baby is placed on a plinth which is also a wooden chest. These were traditionally familiar objects in family homes. Here, in line with the folklore that Zhang Xiaogang evolved in his work in the 1980s, we might read this as being as much a Pandora's box—given the title chosen for the work—as a practical form of storage, and a metaphor for hidden secrets in the manner of skeletons in closets. A book also lies open in front of the baby, but again placed at the reading disposal of the viewing audience. Here, though, there is no hand to guide us to a specific passage, highlighted by the red hand directing the yellow baby's gaze in Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II.
From the first to the second, a move towards a more distinctive personal language is in evidence. On the one hand, Zhang Xiaogang brings a heightened and distinctly classic realism to his depiction of the first red baby in Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I, employing a degree of chiaroscuro to give life to the physical presence of the child. Yet, the red baby is simpler, younger, and by comparison more innocent than the yellow baby. In the second composition, Zhang Xiaogang has altered the formal qualities to place greater emphasis upon the aura of the child. The physical body of the yellow baby is still highlighted by a pool of light that is draped across its torso, but something has changed in the attitude and physicality of this yellow baby. This is the subtlety that was mastered here in an almost invisible stroke of the brush from one painting to the next. Imperceptibly almost, we sense that this baby is stirring, its mind is opening, and as we come to this awareness, we understand how Zhang Xiaogang hints at the instant in each of us when a process of mental absorption begins: whether this leads to true knowledge, to enlightenment or to indoctrination, only the future can determine. But through this small transition, and in light of the works that would follow, in 1993, as Zhang Xiaogang moved towards the creation of the Bloodlines / Big Family series, here in 1992, he was becoming confident of the vision emerging in this work. Here, the carefully constructed symbolism of the setting and of the surrounding objects resonates against the emotion that emanates from the solitary, lone but not alone, vulnerable yet calm, aura of the baby itself. One might presume that the choice of yellow to highlight the baby marks a shift away from what can be read as Zhang Xiaogang's rumination on the recent political ideology circa 1989—Zhang Xiaogang's generation had been constantly described as the red generation, as the children of Mao Zedong's New China, which left many to struggle which a complex and debilitating range of emotions, especially post-1989—towards possibly reflection upon the plight of modern Chinese society in general.
We find this, too, in the background of the painting, in the use of photographic images, taken directly from Zhang Xiaogang's reality. A closer examination of the figures in the photocopy portraits on the wall behind each of the red and yellow babies reveals a shift of focus from political or historic figures, towards the masses of ordinary people. In Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I we see images of political leaders, such as Chen DuXiu who participated in the formation of the Chinese Communist Party, right through to the founding of the People's Republic and its early years. Through these images, Zhang Xiaogang also plots the unfolding of history from the 1920s to 1949, the battles fought by the Communists, as well as strife from foreign invaders. In Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II the focus of these images turns to the Cultural Revolution period form 1966 to 1976, which is also the year in which Mao Zedong died. Through this examination of the recent history that led to the birth of the People's Republic, Zhang Xiaogang still manages to consider the events in terms of the personal experience of a single individual: that is the genius of the use of a baby as the central focus of the painting. It is in the juxtaposition of a baby, the ultimate age of innocence, and the social manifestations of life in the People's Republic as depicted in the black and white photographic imagery collaged on the wall of the space in which the baby is lain on the box, that we find such a poignant sense of despair as well as tenderness towards the innocence of youth that is, fleetingly, still beyond corruption. Borrowing the child's innocent gaze, the artist asks: As the latest in a long, long line of descendents of the Middle Kingdom, to what could the present generation trace its genesis? To what faith did it owe allegiance? For what purpose should it strive, and to what values should it adhere?
It is for all these reasons that the visual language brought to Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II can be said to exhibit a new degree of maturity, even though the two works are highly similar in focus and individual elements.
In July 1992, Zhang Xiaogang travelled to Germany. He returned to China three months later—just ahead of the first Guangzhou Biennial, titled Oil Painting in the 1990s, as part of which Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II made its debut—determined to "find a bridge between Chinese contemporary art and myself - something related to my own life"[3]. This bridge he had arguably already found in the extraordinarily rich language he had drawn on to arrive at the complexity exhibited in Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II. Certainly, looking back over Zhang Xiaogang's remarkable body of work produced in the twenty years since Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II was completed it is possible to discern the roots of his emotional and philosophical view of art and life present here in this major early painting. Then, as now, Zhang Xiaogang's work touches the sensitive side of human nature, even as, at times, it presents the mind with troubling questions. Having surveyed the surface of Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II, the eye always returns to the baby. It is then one discerns a subtle, Buddha-like trace of a smile across his features. Therein, Zhang Xiaogang achieves his aim: an encounter with his art is always a moving experience of the perfectly, poignant magnitude he brought to Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II.
[1] Li Xiaodong, Dancing Dragon: Chinese Aesthetics Since 1979, Drills, 2000, p.19.
[2] There is also a third work similar to Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China II but which presents a red baby, and which is dated 1993. This is usually titled Genesis or Red Baby series.
[3] Zhang Xiaogang in conversation with artist Will Corwin 2008-9.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guangzhou‧The First 1990's Biennial Art Fair
written by Lü Peng, Organizer / Main Judge of the Biennial
Starting from December 1978, the Chinese nation has categorically replaced its previous fixation on political and class struggles with a vested effort to make economic development its central axis. Regrettably, the burgeoning consumerist economy of China set in motion since the late 80's has yet to penetrate the realm of art. China/Avant-Garde Exhibition of 1989 would not have taken place without the propitious financial support of a certain corporation, appearing magically in the nick of time. Artists and curators alike were then confronted with importance of funds. At the same time, artist colonies residing in Yuanmingyuan have completely fallen off of the system, a select few of them surviving only on sparse opportunities to show their works at small invitational exhibitions at homes of foreign diplomats or miniscule art spaces or making the occasional sale with the occasional buyer. Fang Lijun drew for advertisements, Yue Minjun sold watermelons—it became extremely difficult to make a living on selling art. The magazine "Art Market" was founded in early 1991 and accordingly, its inception spurred fervent discussion on art and its market in China. In its manifesto, I expressed my concerns and my hopes for the imperative undertaking of advancing the art market, "the primary mission of 'Art Market' lies in the following: to provide for dealers, collectors, sellers, gallerists and publishers of Chinese paintings a document of academic rigour and data accuracy so that they may direct their attention to a market of tremendous potential, discover a new collecting route as well as identify the correct investment targets." Until Guangzhou‧The First 1990's Biennial Art Fair of 1992, unfortunately many still remained dubious. Under the auspices of earnest critics on modern art (very soon, critics would begin to wield the term "contemporary art") and thoughtful entrepreneurs, the first corporate investment endeavour of Chinese contemporary art came to fruition.
Guangzhou‧The First 1990's Biennial Art Fair of 1992 was the very first milestone on the path toward formal institutionalization of the art market. As Shang Yang proclaimed onstage at the time, "the end of one ear marks the beginning of another." Subsequently, driving the development of contemporary art via the market became the dominant trend. Auctions, art fairs and galleries mushroomed and art practitioners and entities filled a spectrum of roles—artists, critics, dealers, lawyers, collectors, investors, galleries, auction houses and other art-related associations—altogether contributing to the formation of an art market. United, they implement the experiment of the institutionalization of the art market eco-system. The biennial not only inaugurated the cutting-edge movement of "Political Pop" (the leading figure of which is Wang Guangyi) but also provided experience and exposure of a "contemporary art exhibition" for cognizant corporations and art investment organizations. To breach the shackles of prescribed ideologies, to recalibrate parameters of the norm, to modify the rules of the game, to refurbish the environment and infrastructure for the production of art and finally to erect for it a brand new habitat—these were the original objectives as well as consequent contributions to the development of contemporary Chinese art, thus marking its place on the timeline of canonical art historical events.
In 1992, Deng Xiaoping's tour of the South did much to propel economic growth. During October of the same year, Guangzhou‧The First 1990's Biennial Art Fair [The Oil Painting Section] sponsored by a group of companies was held at the international conference room of Hotel Central Guangzhou. 600 works by 350 artists were displayed at the biennial—these included Chinese artists as well as foreign artists from England as well as Italy. On March 1st 1992, I was appointed Organizer/Main Judge of the Art Jury Committee.
The BAF established an Art Jury Committee as well as a Qualification Assessment Committee. Both operated independently and held each other in check while assisting my work as a judge and organizer. On the Committees were the following critics: Zhao Hong, Yang Shaoyan, Yan Shanchun, Yi Dan, Zhu Bin, Huang Zhuan, Peng De, Yin Shuangxi, Pi Daojian, Yi Ying, Chen Xiaoxin, Gu Chengfeng, Yang Li.
The Main Judge presides most heavily over the entire apparatus, along with the participation of the Jury and the Assessment Committees. Committee rules were the following: conformity to law, scholarliness, equality, responsibility, confidentiality. The criterion for judgment is for academicism as primary and then commercial potential as secondary. Each member of the Jury Committee must nominate 27 works and denote their proposed recipients for Documentary Award, Academic Award, Award of Excellence. Works recommended by the Jury Committee became official nominations. After a round of anonymous voting, a ratio of 1:2 was sustained for the number of works to be awarded to works that were nominated. The final roster of works to be awarded was to be examined by the Main Judge, who had final say on the recipients. Two Documentary Awards, five Academic Awards and 20 Awards of Excellence were granted—Zhang Xiaogang's Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People's Republic of China I and II were presented with this very Award of Excellence. Monetary prizes of $50,000, $30,000 and $10,000 respectively were offered along with the awards.
Prior to the biennial, I have once composed an essay on the "standard parameters" of contemporary art. It was written to herald the imminence of the BAF, "in the face of the international art market and the international art system, the standard parameters of Chinese art must be devised by the Chinese themselves." This utopian ideal is laid in plain view in the preface to the biennial catalogue, "Opening Up 1990s". The text lists the directions for and issues behind the institutionalization of art in China and outlined the ideological framework for its market:
The BAF is different from any other exhibition ever held in China. Within the economic infrastructure in operation behind, "investment" takes the place of "sponsorship." In terms of organizers, corporate enterprises replace cultural organizations. In execution, legal contracts supersede official notices. Regarding the scholarly backdrop, the Jury Committee made up of critics displaces the so-called "judge group" composed of artists. In the realm of objectives, economic, social and academic effects have championed the uni-dimensional, narrow, disputable subjective "success" of art. All these characteristics of the BAF show that China's art history of 1990s has really begun in full swing.
There is no question that the First Guangzhou Biennial laid the groundwork for the modern exhibition in China. Art events, big and small, have not ruptured through the example and model of the biennial. The comprehensiveness and formality of the contract, the rigour and impartiality of the judging committee, the curatorial concept and the selection of works—the BAF has built the skeletal framework of an edifice and exhibitions of recent decades have served to fill and enrich the cavities of this robust building. In other words, the Guangzhou‧The First 1990's Biennial Art Fair constitutes a veritable blueprint for all exhibitions that were and are to come.