93
Zhang Xiaogang
Amnesia and Memory
- Estimate
- $18,000 - 25,000
$18,750
Lot Details
The complete set of 12 offset lithographs with screenprint in colors, on Somerset paper, with full margins, plus accompanying book with reproductions of the artist’s work and bonus lithograph,
2006
32 1/2 x 24 3/4 in. (82.6 x 62.9 cm)
all signed, dated `2006' and numbered 67/88 in pencil (there were also 12 artist’s proofs), published by Gallery Artside, Beijing and Seoul, all contained in original gray cloth-covered portfolio case with book inset.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
[Our purpose is] to ensure that literature and
art fit well into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that
they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for
attacking and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people fight the
enemy with one heart and one mind.
Chapter 32, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Little Red Book), 1964
art fit well into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that
they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for
attacking and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people fight the
enemy with one heart and one mind.
Chapter 32, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Little Red Book), 1964
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.
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