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Lot Essay
The example set by Gu Dexin, Geng Jianyi, and Zhang Peili in many ways paved the way for conventional painting to break with its representational limitations and to be informed by other art forms, principles, and philosophical traditions. Those who remained rooted in painting brought to their practice radically conceptual and innovative means. Early signs of this shift can be found with the advent of a distinctly Chinese form of political pop as exemplified in the works of Li Shan (Lot 250). Li's appropriation of Mao Zedong's youthful image as a young revolutionary significantly shifted the terms on which Chinese artists engaged history, introducing a pop irony and suggesting the historical agency of the subject as more than simply victim.
One of the most notorious painters of this period is the Shanghai-based artist, Zhou Tiehai. Best-known for his slyly knowing Joe Camel paintings -- wherein "Joe" becomes an avatar for the artist himself -- placed in situations to ridicule the commercialization of the art world. The camel-figure is comic and disarming, both inelegant and unromanticized as an animal, and the embodiment of self-ironizing consumer culture in his role representing a global cigarette brand. As such, Zhou's works deliberately confront our expectations, suggesting that the artist has become transformed into a figure of celebrity branding and consumption, and in works like Aiming at the Museum from 1998 (Lot 267), Zhou scathingly suggests that even the role of the "outsider", avant-garde artist has been co-opted by a system that promotes the commodification of spectacle.
Zhou's worldview as an artist is rooted in the culture debates of the 1980s over the question of influence, modernity, and Chinese tradition, and the urge to find an "authentic" new aesthetic paradigm that was not derivative of Western practices. The fever of these debates, as well as the impossibility of their clear resolution, is summarized by Zhou's spectacular work from 1991, Break (Lot 249). The work is an collage-like palimpsest of different ideological styles and paradigms, rendered in a mix of styles blending 18th Century European history painting, Chinese Socialist Realist propaganda, off-hand childlike graffiti, and informal diaristic, musings. At the center of the composition is the heroic and chiseled revolutionary figure, seeming to leap into history with his arm outstretched, flanked on either side by the Chinese words for "break" or rupture. Another figure, crudely drawn, squats at the foreground of the canvas, seemingly preparing to throw bricks at an unseen enemy, while another figure still is reminiscent of the domestic posters promoting industry and research under communism. Painted on newspapers mounted on canvas, the immediacy of the media and the style of the work suggest the urgency of these dilemmas, that they are both personal and relevant to the entire nation's course. A variety of "voices" can be found in the musings written across the canvas, with one figure pondering how to translate the experience of daily life into art, or the central revolutionary reviling the insidious nature of capitalism. The characters written in black at the upper left appear to speak for the artist himself, uncomfortable with the tendency to borrow techniques from the West, but equally dismayed by those who simply "throw bricks". He ends with the frustrated rhetorical lament: "how is one to paint?" Further, at the center of the canvas is a seemingly refined figure of French aristocracy who, shoulders bared, equally calls to mind the visage of Liberty Leading the People (Fig. 1) with a note identifying her role in the revolution and time spent in the Bastille Prison, suggesting that whatever side of history one might be on, one's fate is as unpredictable as it is ultimately unequivocal.
This period is notable for the continued adherence to painting, even as postmodernist concepts often inspired artists into new media. Wang Xingwei and Xie Nanxing, for example, were leaders in highly personalized visions stripped of any ideology, works that challenged the viewers to appreciate their direct and singular expressiveness. Xie Nanxing, in the two works on paper featured here from 1994 and 1996 respectively (Lot 270 & Lot 271) already reveal a highly personal style of on par with Egon Schiele (Fig. 2) and Alice Neel (Fig. 3) in his degree of expressivity and psychological penetration. Contra the contemporary works of Cynical Realists or others, Xie simply invites the viewer to engage the works based on simple and direct aesthetic appreciation.
Similarly, Wang Xingwei, steeped in art history, has shifted quickly from series to series over the years, challenging his viewers to keep up with the intelligence and sophistication of his projects. In his earliest works, Wang appropriated canonical art historical imagery, rearranging them in provocative tableaus to reveal new possibilities and to challenge the viewer's expectations the nature of art making. With Art No. 15 and No. 17 (Lot 277 & Lot 276), Wang redefines the role of the artist entirely by subcontracting the painting process to another artist. With these abstract works, exuberant, expressive canvases reminiscent of Joan Miro or Wassily Kandinsky (Fig. 4), Wang chooses to foreground the relationship of the artist's "contract" above that of the artist's concept. As such, Wang reorders the underpinnings of the entire modern art system and its myths surrounding the artist as genius auteur. With these works he reminds us just how often the great works of art history were indeed produced with collaboratively, with assistants, or in the service of a patron, and challenges our presumptions around the autonomous value of the artist and his or her role as creative producer.
The unexpected hallucinatory visions of these post-modern painters have been well-received internationally. Duan Jianyu's absurdist and confounding Art Chicken series appeared at the 50th Venice Biennale, a series of comic, unexpected, and often bizarrely sexual works canvases that, taken together, provide a sympathetic ode to the often humiliating nature of modern, industrial life. Like her contemporaries, Duan is steeped in art historical allusions, and, like Wang Xingwei and Zhou Tiehai, the droll open-ended appropriations found in Hey Hello Hi No. 7 (Vermeer) (Lot 278) point to the insecurities of the contemporary artist as he or she attempts to stand up to the legacy of their predecessors.
This interest in the expressive, independent of socio-historic commentary, was one of the great, liberating aspects of art-making in this period. Shen Xiaotong's portrait from 1999 speaks to the uncertainty of early adulthood and the fragility of interpersonal relationships (Lot 268). Paintings of Li Yongbin investigates into the conflicts between portraiture, representation and the mutable nature of identity, which is understood when seen in the context of his video work (Lot 272).
One of the most notorious painters of this period is the Shanghai-based artist, Zhou Tiehai. Best-known for his slyly knowing Joe Camel paintings -- wherein "Joe" becomes an avatar for the artist himself -- placed in situations to ridicule the commercialization of the art world. The camel-figure is comic and disarming, both inelegant and unromanticized as an animal, and the embodiment of self-ironizing consumer culture in his role representing a global cigarette brand. As such, Zhou's works deliberately confront our expectations, suggesting that the artist has become transformed into a figure of celebrity branding and consumption, and in works like Aiming at the Museum from 1998 (Lot 267), Zhou scathingly suggests that even the role of the "outsider", avant-garde artist has been co-opted by a system that promotes the commodification of spectacle.
Zhou's worldview as an artist is rooted in the culture debates of the 1980s over the question of influence, modernity, and Chinese tradition, and the urge to find an "authentic" new aesthetic paradigm that was not derivative of Western practices. The fever of these debates, as well as the impossibility of their clear resolution, is summarized by Zhou's spectacular work from 1991, Break (Lot 249). The work is an collage-like palimpsest of different ideological styles and paradigms, rendered in a mix of styles blending 18th Century European history painting, Chinese Socialist Realist propaganda, off-hand childlike graffiti, and informal diaristic, musings. At the center of the composition is the heroic and chiseled revolutionary figure, seeming to leap into history with his arm outstretched, flanked on either side by the Chinese words for "break" or rupture. Another figure, crudely drawn, squats at the foreground of the canvas, seemingly preparing to throw bricks at an unseen enemy, while another figure still is reminiscent of the domestic posters promoting industry and research under communism. Painted on newspapers mounted on canvas, the immediacy of the media and the style of the work suggest the urgency of these dilemmas, that they are both personal and relevant to the entire nation's course. A variety of "voices" can be found in the musings written across the canvas, with one figure pondering how to translate the experience of daily life into art, or the central revolutionary reviling the insidious nature of capitalism. The characters written in black at the upper left appear to speak for the artist himself, uncomfortable with the tendency to borrow techniques from the West, but equally dismayed by those who simply "throw bricks". He ends with the frustrated rhetorical lament: "how is one to paint?" Further, at the center of the canvas is a seemingly refined figure of French aristocracy who, shoulders bared, equally calls to mind the visage of Liberty Leading the People (Fig. 1) with a note identifying her role in the revolution and time spent in the Bastille Prison, suggesting that whatever side of history one might be on, one's fate is as unpredictable as it is ultimately unequivocal.
This period is notable for the continued adherence to painting, even as postmodernist concepts often inspired artists into new media. Wang Xingwei and Xie Nanxing, for example, were leaders in highly personalized visions stripped of any ideology, works that challenged the viewers to appreciate their direct and singular expressiveness. Xie Nanxing, in the two works on paper featured here from 1994 and 1996 respectively (Lot 270 & Lot 271) already reveal a highly personal style of on par with Egon Schiele (Fig. 2) and Alice Neel (Fig. 3) in his degree of expressivity and psychological penetration. Contra the contemporary works of Cynical Realists or others, Xie simply invites the viewer to engage the works based on simple and direct aesthetic appreciation.
Similarly, Wang Xingwei, steeped in art history, has shifted quickly from series to series over the years, challenging his viewers to keep up with the intelligence and sophistication of his projects. In his earliest works, Wang appropriated canonical art historical imagery, rearranging them in provocative tableaus to reveal new possibilities and to challenge the viewer's expectations the nature of art making. With Art No. 15 and No. 17 (Lot 277 & Lot 276), Wang redefines the role of the artist entirely by subcontracting the painting process to another artist. With these abstract works, exuberant, expressive canvases reminiscent of Joan Miro or Wassily Kandinsky (Fig. 4), Wang chooses to foreground the relationship of the artist's "contract" above that of the artist's concept. As such, Wang reorders the underpinnings of the entire modern art system and its myths surrounding the artist as genius auteur. With these works he reminds us just how often the great works of art history were indeed produced with collaboratively, with assistants, or in the service of a patron, and challenges our presumptions around the autonomous value of the artist and his or her role as creative producer.
The unexpected hallucinatory visions of these post-modern painters have been well-received internationally. Duan Jianyu's absurdist and confounding Art Chicken series appeared at the 50th Venice Biennale, a series of comic, unexpected, and often bizarrely sexual works canvases that, taken together, provide a sympathetic ode to the often humiliating nature of modern, industrial life. Like her contemporaries, Duan is steeped in art historical allusions, and, like Wang Xingwei and Zhou Tiehai, the droll open-ended appropriations found in Hey Hello Hi No. 7 (Vermeer) (Lot 278) point to the insecurities of the contemporary artist as he or she attempts to stand up to the legacy of their predecessors.
This interest in the expressive, independent of socio-historic commentary, was one of the great, liberating aspects of art-making in this period. Shen Xiaotong's portrait from 1999 speaks to the uncertainty of early adulthood and the fragility of interpersonal relationships (Lot 268). Paintings of Li Yongbin investigates into the conflicts between portraiture, representation and the mutable nature of identity, which is understood when seen in the context of his video work (Lot 272).