Lot 1062
  • 1062

Zeng Fanzhi

Estimate
12,000,000 - 18,000,000 HKD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Zeng Fanzhi
  • Mao (triptych)
  • executed in 2004
  • oil on canvas
  • each 200 by 200 cm.; 78¾ by 78¾ in.
each signed in Chinese

Provenance

F2 Gallery, Beijing
Acquired by the present owner from the above 

Exhibited

France, Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Zeng Fanzhi, 18 October 2013 - 16 February 2014, pp. 142-143

Literature

Unmask the Mask: Zeng Fanzhi, Gallery Artiste, Seoul, Korea, 2004, pp. 16-17

Condition

This work is generally in good condition. (i) There are minor abrasions and sporadic linear colour separations in the mid-right area, which are only visible upon close inspection. (iii) There are minor craquelures in the mid-right area. Having examined the work under ultraviolet light, (iii) was restored in the mid-right area of the work, and there appears to be no evidence of restoration for the other two works.
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Catalogue Note

Please note that Mao will be featured in Zeng Fanzhi's upcoming catalogue raisonné, published by Zeng Fanzhi Studios

Changes, Chiaroscuro, and The Chairman
Zeng Fanzhi

 

Zeng Fanzhi’s ubiquity in the discourse of contemporary Asian art is unquestionable, and his repertoire of exhibitions has only swelled in recent years, with a successful slew of shows at renowned global institutions affirming his international appeal. Although Zeng is foremost recognised as the “Mask Artist”, at the turn of the millennium the artist explored a different manner of artistic rendering, and rather than shield his characters with the masks he is so well known for, he began to scour the surfaces of his paintings with rings that blurred their visages. The piece on offer is the Mao triptych (Lot 1062), a set of three works that present Mao Zedong undergoing a process of concealment, subject to the artist’s creative exploration.   

 

In 1995, the venerated art critic Li Xianting initiated the first-ever formal artistic discourse on Zeng Fanzhi’s oeuvre. Although Li was describing a shift in the artist’s style—when Zeng was transitioning from his initial expressionistic Mask works to a refinement whereby he would use a palette to scrape the surface of his paintings—the validity of his statement still holds true for Mao, indicative of Zeng’s unwavering commitment to creating a certain aesthetic:

 

“The qualities of detachment and rationalism are particularly achieved through a change in technique. Rather than the bold, expressionistic strokes and neurotic patterning of Zeng’s first period, the artist now uses the palette knife to scrape the surface flat, blurring or even obliterating the brushstrokes. The flat background that emerges is at the same time both shadowy and insubstantial. There is a sense of suspension between reality and unreality, accentuated by the presence of unexplainable shadows and traces of light coming from nowhere, pushing the characters into an alien environment and eradicating the intimate quality of familiar reality.

As is evident in Mao, the nebulous locale of the figure and the zooming-in of the Chairman’s face indeed ushers in a “sense of suspension between reality and unreality”, which is all the more accentuated by the gradual fading and blurring of the visage of Mao Zedong.

 

The outlines of the three canvases of Mao ZeDong are covered by circular motions, as if this act of concealment, if not of self-imposed confusion, is as much part of the painting as the content itself. The last image of Mao’s visage is barely recognisable close-up, and requires distance in order to appreciate. Representative of a technique that was a development on Zeng’s part as an extension of the Mask works, as if the rounded motion he was inflicting on his new characters, such as Mao, was a new take on the act of concealment and veiling he was once fond of.

 

The depiction of Mao is also an interesting choice, as before this point Zeng very rarely turned to specific figures. Instead, most of his historical allusions were symbolised through subtler details such as sense of dress, for instance, the red kerchiefs that were popular during the Cultural Revolution. Mao is one of the first of its kind, as Zeng’s preoccupation with the character would come to be featured only sporadically, such as in the Great Men series, Chairman Mao with Us or Mao Portrait. This interest seems to highlight the artist’s investigation into his Chinese heritage, an investigation that becomes all the more interesting considering how the piece is executed with a relatively Western Expressionistic flare. while at the same time perhaps ruminating on Mao’s waning dominion over the Chinese psyche as the country emerged from the Cultural Revolution.

 

As a child of the Cultural Revolution, Zeng Fanzhi’s portrayal of the image of Mao is a tribute to its iconography and omnipresence. Once adorning every classroom’s walls in the country, Mao Zedong assumed an almost paternal role in China and was revered as an idol. Although The Chairman’s face has been reproduced as part of “Pop” culture, namely by Western artists such as Andy Warhol, the significance of rendering his face is drastically different for a Chinese artist, and can be read as a form of rumination and reminiscence on the country’s cultural shift, its opening to the Western world, and its urban development. That Mao has been painted simply, in a modest monochrome palette, is a testament to the simplicity of this meditation. Mao’s face gradually fades into the shadows until it is barely recognisable, symbolic of the declining memory of the figure, but also of the Cultural Revolution itself—perhaps in many ways Mao is also cathartic in this sense. 

 

Such spiralled figures would gradually grow fewer in number in Zeng’s oeuvre, and the examination of the character of Mao, moreover, becomes increasingly rarer in the artist’s work.  Mao is thus vital in understanding the development of Zeng’s skill, as well as offers a glimpse of the artist’s upbringing and childhood memories. More importantly however, it is an emphatic work that is deeply rooted in the Chinese psyche, offering a sliver of the nation’s collective memory.  Painted against the backdrop of a country that to the artist seemed to have become increasingly individualistic and lonely however, the vanishing of Mao is indicative of the times, and represents the changing nature of quotidian life.