JIa Aili

initialled in Pinyin and dated 2007.8

doART Beijing Gallery, Beijing
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Shanghai, Minsheng Center for Contemporary Art, Look for Me, September-October, 2008, p. 33

The Wasteland, Platform China, Beijing, China, 2007, p. 8 (installation view at artist's studio)
Lü Peng ed., Thirty Years of Adventure, Timezone 8 Limited, Beijing, China, 2010, p. 611
Thirty Years of Chinese Contemporary Art 1979-2009, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2010, p. 505

These works are generally in good condition. There are gentle wear and handling marks around edges and corners. Please note that they were not examined under ultraviolet light.
"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.
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Jia Aili
Illustrating the Times

Chinese society has transformed rapidly in the past three decades—from the collectivismsocialism of the 70's, through the Open Door Policy of the 80's and the transitions of the 90's, to the economic miracles of the new millennium. In human history there have probably been few civilizations that have reversed their fortunes in such a short time and with such willfulness. The swift societal changes have expanded generational divisions, and the new generation of Chinese artists, with their radically different upbringing, possess a different mentality. In the kaleidoscopic world of Chinese contemporary art, style may not have to be delineated in terms of class, but generational difference is nonetheless observable.

Born in 1979, Jia Aili graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. Jia grew up in Dandong in the northeastern Liaoning Province, just a river away from North Korea. By the 1990's, socialism was already a distant memory and an empty label. Many people were unable to adjust to the dazzling economic development. Beginning with his own self, Jia Aili explores the raison d'etre of the individual, reflecting the younger generation's mentality with steely and explosive brushstrokes and scenes set in fantastically constructed environments and amid apocalyptic ruins. Jia is foremost among younger artists in his firm grasp of the shape of the times and has received tremendous critical attention in recent years. It's Not Only You Who is Pale (Lot 829) from 2007 was one of the largest works made in the early phase of his career. A colossal and impressive work combining the mediums of oil painting and installation, it is highly representative and extremely rare. It consists of three panels of oil painting totalling 6 metres in width and 3 metres in height. The young artist's unusually precocious mastery of large-scale painting is manifest.

At the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, Jia Aili was rigorously trained in figure painting in the Soviet Socialist Realist tradition. However, he never shows off his amazing virtuosity, and instead strives for the effect of an epic tragedy. This sense of tragedy comes from Jia's melancholy but also indirectly reflects the new generation's resistance towards and escapism from social transformations. "A young person like me is mentally repressed and melancholy, and I am depressed... I see no concrete contradictions in front of me, but only inchoate things."1 Even more serious is uncertainty about the future: "I believe that those adults who once instilled in us hope will no longer give us tomorrow's answers... In the new century, we will still live ordinary lives."

In works made between 2005 and 2007, wastelands, oceans, and beaches are frequent settings, and human figures wearing gas masks are recurring motifs. The figures are always vastly dwarfed by and subservient to their environments. The overall colour palette is based on blues and greys, maximizing the sense of repressed feelings. "The scenes I like are of the ennui of a big group of people after reckless revelries, which seem to linger vaguely amidst the loneliness and melancholy."2 In this series called Mad Scenes by the artist, It's Not Only You Who is Pale is the most important work. A person wearing a gas mask, with two black wings, and holding a television set is looking from a chaotic setting towards a smoking bed with white sheets. Aside from the three oil painting panels, the work also includes an installation of a hung white wooden chair. The painting explodes from vanishing point, and irregular lines denote a ruined wasteland. Hiding behind masks under the boundless skies, human existence is insignificant, lonely, and helpless. Alienation is the only state of being. Jia has said that "Human thinking is all insignificant. Everything done on earth and under the heavens is quite insignificant too."3 The chaotic wasteland is a space of desperation, and the burning white bed symbolizes disillusionment. "It is a kind of desperation: on the whole the world looks beautiful, but when you study its flaws up-close, it pains you to the core."4 Filled with prophetic iconography, the composition invokes like riddles and parables. In a chaotic and disjointed world, everything is undergoing disintegration and collapse. For Jia Aili, painting seems to be the best means to hold on to existence. "When I am alone in the studio putting this depression as paint on the canvas, I feel quite happy after all."5

As an emerging artist, Jia Aili is always compared to the fellow contemporary Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi. Indeed, both artists paint masked human figures to express the state of modern life, but their different upbringings give their art completely divergent qualities. Zeng Fanzhi's Mask Series is typically expressionistic: created under China's economic rise in 1990's, it coincided with China's first entry into a market economy. Although Zeng's masks hide his figures' faces, his highly expressive brushwork and their hyperbolic gestures unmistakably convey their discomforts and anxieties. These submerged tensions fill Zeng's works with a feeling of an impending explosion. By contrast, Jia Aili, like many artists in his generation, grew up in a world that is highly networked but where people are alienated from one another. Political and social consciousness is very faint in his works. They moreover feel more personal and secretive, more restrained in their emotional relevations. Their almost cruel feeling reflects the character of the times. Starting with himself, the sensitive Jia Aili records the mentality of Chinese who grew up in the 1990's.

1 "Depression from Nowhere", Interview of Jia Aili with Fu Xiaodong and Sun Ning
2 Refer to 1
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