Zhu Jinshi

signed and dated 85 in Chinese; signed in Pinyin and dated 1985 on the reverse, framed

Private Collection
Koller Auction, Zurich, 17 November 2015, lot 303
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

Switzerland, Chur, Bündner Kunstmuseum, Kunstgepack eines Diplomaten, Hans & Hildi Müller Collection, 1990

This work is in good condition with minor surface accretion and faint stretcher marks near the edges. Please note that it was not examined under UV light.
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Early Chinese Abstraction — the Avant-Garde Art of Home Salons

After the end of the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, putting aside the inevitability of art historical progress, as far as individual artists were concerned, the adoption and development of abstract art entailed varying degrees of romanticism. A bohemian spirit of freedom and rebellion characterized not only the creative practices of abstract artists but also their lives, their relationships, and even the methods in which they displayed and sold their artworks. This atmosphere was naturally related to the political and cultural atmosphere in China at the time, and it became the initial breakthrough point as Chinese contemporary art entered the Western field of vision after a long period of isolation. As a consequence, in terms of both its rejuvenation of artistic ideas and its challenges to the autocratic arts system, the nascent Chinese abstract art of the early 1980s possessed an avant-garde significance. Four abstract works that were collected by Hans Müller, the Swiss Ambassador to China at the time, are representative of this phenomenon. These works were created by China's most pioneering abstract artists--Ma Kelu, Tang Pinggang, Zhang Wei, and Zhu Jinshi--at a time in which they were still establishing their own styles. These vestiges of that historical moment are illuminating testimonies of a romantic era.

As the art historian Yi Ying has pointed out, "In the 1980s, Chinese abstract art was first of all produced as ideology".¹ "Abstract" was a name for a Western modern art style diametrically opposed to the previously state-sanctioned style of Socialist Realism, and was therefore a sensitive subject. In the 1980s, abstract painting was often criticized by the "Anti Capitalist Liberalization" movement and excluded from the government-controlled channels of art exhibition. However, "the point of abstract art lies not in abstract forms but in the freedom concealed behind the abstraction: artistic freedom and human freedom".² This impetus, combined with the dual forces of the language of Western abstract art and China's indigenous artistic resources, allowed the practices of Chinese abstract artists to gradually move against the state-sanctioned forms of art and depict a conceptual realm of individualism and liberalism.

In the crucial year of 1981, the "American Paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston" exhibition at National Art Museum of China gave young artists the opportunity to see abstract paintings firsthand. Previously, these artists had only been able to study Western abstract art from extremely low-quality reproductions. Ma Kelu, Tang Pinggang, Zhang Wei, and Zhu Jinshi had previously subordinated themselves to various unofficial art cliques such as the Wuming ("Nameless") and Xingxing ("Stars") groups. They began to depart from the groups, and whether they were painting scenic landscapes to amuse themselves or creating intensely political artworks, they often gathered together to discuss questions of painting form. Around 1982, the work of these four painters successively turned towards abstraction, and they each sought to develop distinctive styles. Ma Kelu abandoned his earlier, magnificently colourful landscapes in favour of a highly rhythmic and melodic method of bold brushstrokes to produce rational "psychological orders" (Abstract Composition, 1983)(Lot 874). Colour was a compositional element containing hidden meaning for Zhang Wei. Jackson Pollock's "action painting" inspired him to splash paint onto colour fields like the large and freely splattered swath of green of Untitled (Lot 875). In that work from 1983, the layering and brushstrokes fall into the orbit of the drips of colour. Park (1983)(Lot 873), Tang Pinggang, who was nicknamed "the Lone Watchman", exhibits a forthright and sincere technique, a quirky imagination, and a showy use of colour. Zhu Jinshi emphasized dynamic, calligraphy-influenced brushwork on his canvases. Using rapid movements to create texture, he explored the possibilities of pure abstract form in his organic compositions of large colour blocks, such as Untitled (1985)(Lot 872).

As a diplomat stationed in Beijing from 1982 to 1986, Hans Müller had the opportunity to bear witness to the early avant-garde transformation in Chinese contemporary art. Müller, a broad-minded art lover, was often an honoured guest at the private and unofficial home art salons organized by Zhang Wei.³ In addition to serving as an important space for cultural exchange between East and West outside of official channels, these home salons were the sanctuaries of avant-garde artists--and their sole means of disseminating and selling their work.  In December 1982, Zhang Wei organized the first underground abstract art exhibition at his own home featuring the work of seven artists including himself. Subsequently, such unofficial gatherings were held with increasing regularity at either the homes of artists or the apartments of consular personnel in Beijing’s diplomatic compounds. During this period, the circumstances of artists' lives were often indirectly reflected in the details of their work. For example, due to their material impoverishment, both Tang Pinggang and Zhang Wei painted on both sides of the canvases of Park and Untitled. This use of both sides was the result of the limitations of the time, but it also provides a glimpse into the explorative process of the two artists' styles. Zhang Wei often signed his paintings with the pseudonym "Jungo" during 1983 due to the influence of his German friend Ulrike Koch. It was Ulrike who brought Hans Müller and his wife to the abstract painting exhibitions at the home salons, where he added these four works to his collection. This collection is particularly special because it could only have been assembled in a specific time and set of circumstances in China. Thus, in addition the avant-garde artistic merits of these paintings, their value and significance are accentuated by the historical context of their creation and acquisition.

¹ Yi Ying, "Experience of Abstraction and Chinse Contempoary Art - Criticism on the Sociology of Art History, Wen Yi Yan Jiu, May 2007
² Yi Ying, "History of Contemporary Chinese Abstraction", Narratives of Aesthetics and Abstraction, Gao Minglu ed., Sichuan Art Publishing House, 2007, p. 61
³ Gao Minglu, Total Modernity and the Avant-Garde in Twentieth-Century Chinese Art, The MIT Press, 2011, p. 271