No. 61

In his ten-year exploration on the theme of violence since 1996, Yang Shaobin shifted his primary focus from personal experience to the society which humans lead their life in. Fighting Series (Lot 463) created in 2002 features a human body portrayed in layering grey. The strong narrative nature of the work resembles it to a movie scene, displaying momentum and abstraction at the same time. While Fighting Series shares with No. 61 (Lot 541) in the absence of cause-and-effect for description, the point of view was drastically transformed. Viewers no longer loom the subject with an eye-level view, but peek with an upward view to experience the great shock brought about by the work's setting and graphics presentation. The previous Red Violence series set humans as the medium of the expression of direct violence, whereas Fighting Series created, through both daily life and virtual scenarios, a distance faraway yet close between viewers and the subject. Yang Shaobin once mentioned, "I in fact prefer a more reserved form of violence in my works." From No. 61 to Fighting Series, we witnessed through the pressing tension presented in both, the evolution of the artist in his creative process and point of view.