F2 Gallery, Beijing; Private collection, United Kingdom
Catalogue Essay
In the world according to Shi Xinning, China is present in all history. The artist is most acclaimed for his series of paintings that insert Mao Zedong into historic scenes from the 1940s and 1950s. Mao appears in political conventions, hobnobs with Hollywood celebrities, and appears with the leading ladies of that era on his arm. This displacement conjures up a nostalgic desire to revise China’s history of that period, transforming the oft-feared, mercurial leader into a ubiquitous, genial personality at home on the international stage. As the cheerful, omnipresent protagonist of paintings such as Ava Gardner (Lot 231), Mao is an affable, tongue-in-cheek character displaying a social facility that endears him to the viewer.
In the present lot, Manhattan, Shi offers up a slightly different icon of historic appropriation: a Chinese flag flying over a victorious Wall Street parade half a century ago. The work evokes an odd poignancy and slight unease arising from the imagined world order that would give rise to this scenario. Part of the charm of Shi’s work lies in the fact that China has never politically dominated any of the countries in which Shi’s works are set; for example, envisaging the Stars and Stripes flying over Tiananmen Square would evoke much fiercer emotions. Shi’s image also reminds us of the invisible currents of globalization today, when contemporary China’s strength appears not in the form of an ornamental flag but in the intangible economic drivers of Wall Street.