Feng Zhengjie - Contemporary Art Part II New York Friday, November 17, 2006 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong

  • Catalogue Essay

    Feng’s iconic Kitsch Mao series transmutes the Great Leader’s visage, once revered and indeed feared, into an unsettling emblem of contemporary China. Chinese artists have frequently appropriated Mao’s image, most notably during the Political Pop movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Feng’s Kitsch Maos pioneered the use of slick Warholesque hues that reflect the image-saturated, consumer-driven China of the past decade. The subject’s signature stylized eyebrows, painted lips and bow tie amplify the rampant dandyism of urban Chinese life; the airbrushed neon palette becomes the material constitution of an artificial idol-worship that is both seductive and unreal. Most strikingly, Feng’s characteristically blank eyes serve up a mirror of Mao’s ex-subjects that apparently reflects only a blank slate; in the artist’s eyes, one form of hegemony has merely been traded for another.

313

Kitsch Mao No. 13

2002
Oil on canvas.
59 1/8 x 59 1/8 in. (150.2 x 150.2 cm).
Signed, titled and dated "FENG ZHENGJIE No. 13 2002.1" lower left.

Estimate
$40,000 - 60,000 

Sold for $84,000

Contemporary Art Part II

17 Nov 2006, 10am & 2pm
New York