Zhang Xiaogang - Evening & Day Editions London Wednesday, January 21, 2015 | Phillips

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  • Artist Biography

    Zhang Xiaogang

    Chinese • 1958

    Relying 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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207

My Dear Friends: one print

2002
Offset lithograph in colours, on Lana paper, with full margins,
I. 37 x 29 cm (14 5/8 x 11 3/8 in.)
S. 47 x 38 cm (18 1/2 x 14 7/8 in.)

signed and numbered 97/99 in pencil, published by the Kwai Po Collection, Hong Kong, framed.

Estimate
£1,500 - 2,000 

Sold for £1,875

Contact Specialist
Robert Kennan
Head of Sale, Editions
London
+44 207 318 4075

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 22 January 2015 2pm & 6pm