57
Zhang Xiaogang
Description, plate no. 20, from The Storyteller’s Enchantment
- Estimate
- $2,000 - 3,000
$1,651
Lot Details
Lithograph in colors, on Rives BFK paper, with full margins, contained in the original paper folio with red text in French, Chinese and English, tipped in (as issued).
2009
I. 30 3/4 x 39 1/2 in. (78.1 x 100.3 cm)
S. 31 1/4 x 47 in. (79.4 x 119.4 cm)
S. 31 1/4 x 47 in. (79.4 x 119.4 cm)
Signed and numbered 'III/CXXX' in pencil, additionally signed by the author, Fernando Arrabal and numbered in pencil on the paper folio (the edition was 130 and 4 artist's proofs in Roman numerals), published by Delight Editions, unframed.
Specialist
Further Details
Full-Cataloguing
Provenance
Zhang Xiaogang
Chinese | 1958Relying on memory and inspired by family portraits from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Zhang Xiaogang creates surreal, subtle artworks that explore the notion of identity in relation to the Chinese culture of collectivism. Using a muted, greyscale palette, Xiaogang repeatedly depicts a series of unnervingly similar figures, often dressed in identical Mao suits, to create an endless genealogy of imagined forebears and progenitors. Their somber, melancholy gazes are interrupted only by thin red bloodlines intimating familial links as well as occasional pale splotches of color resembling birthmarks.Xiaogang investigates how to express individual histories within the strict confines of a formula. His sitters, while appearing muted and compliant, are given physical exaggerations: oversized heads, tiny hands and long noses. These distortions imply stifled emotions and give a complex psychological dimension to the artist's work.
Browse Artist