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Lot Essay
'I began to paint 'family portraits' in 1993 because I was moved by old photographs. It is hard for me to explain which nerve of my soul was touched by these carefully polished old pictures. They stirred random recollections. I could not let go of them. After a while, I gradually realised that in those standardised portraits, besides the historical background behind the pictures, what touched me was precisely the formulaic 'polished-ness' about them. It embodies an age-old, particular aesthetic of Chinese popular culture, namely indistinct individuality, a 'poetic' beauty'. (Zhang quoted in 'Report from the Artist's Studio 1996' in H. Wu (ed.), Contemporary Chinese Art Primary Documents, New York, 2010, pp.190-191.)
Bloodline Series: The Young Man, painted in 1996, hails from Zhang Xiaogang's iconic Bloodline series. Soon after discovering an old photograph of his mother in her youth in the early 1990s, Zhang began producing individual portraits of young comrades in a series that would come to define Chinese contemporary art history. The period was also a significant turning point for both the Contemporary Chinese Art scene and Zhang's personal artistic career. As the artistic styles 'Political Pop', and 'Cynical Realism' gained popularity around the world, his Bloodline series stood for the artist's own transition from creating an emotional-driven, illusionistic, dreamlike imagery to a conceptual, rational and symbolic structure of visual language.
In Bloodline Series: The Young Man, Zhang presents a lone male sitter quietly and stoically gazing at the viewer. Here, Zhang references common studio portraiture as a metaphor to underline and negotiate personal memories against the collective experiences of his generation. The washed-out quality found in the painting implies a certain fragility and tension that symbolises the burden of history, to remind us of the obligations and expectations both of the traditional Chinese family and this period in which the ideals of collectivism dominated.
Furthermore, extending out from the figure are bloodlines that can be seen as tenuous threads linking Zhang's comrades and the subconscious effects of collectivism. In short, Bloodline Series: The Young Man is a singular and arresting portrait that powerfully communicates the distinct and conflicting qualities of the contemporary Chinese experience.
Bloodline Series: The Young Man, painted in 1996, hails from Zhang Xiaogang's iconic Bloodline series. Soon after discovering an old photograph of his mother in her youth in the early 1990s, Zhang began producing individual portraits of young comrades in a series that would come to define Chinese contemporary art history. The period was also a significant turning point for both the Contemporary Chinese Art scene and Zhang's personal artistic career. As the artistic styles 'Political Pop', and 'Cynical Realism' gained popularity around the world, his Bloodline series stood for the artist's own transition from creating an emotional-driven, illusionistic, dreamlike imagery to a conceptual, rational and symbolic structure of visual language.
In Bloodline Series: The Young Man, Zhang presents a lone male sitter quietly and stoically gazing at the viewer. Here, Zhang references common studio portraiture as a metaphor to underline and negotiate personal memories against the collective experiences of his generation. The washed-out quality found in the painting implies a certain fragility and tension that symbolises the burden of history, to remind us of the obligations and expectations both of the traditional Chinese family and this period in which the ideals of collectivism dominated.
Furthermore, extending out from the figure are bloodlines that can be seen as tenuous threads linking Zhang's comrades and the subconscious effects of collectivism. In short, Bloodline Series: The Young Man is a singular and arresting portrait that powerfully communicates the distinct and conflicting qualities of the contemporary Chinese experience.