Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist
Literature
J. Noth, W. Pohlmann, and K. Reschke, eds., China Avant-Garde: Counter-currents in Art and Culture, Berlin, 1993, pp. 117, 121 (illustrated); M. Gao, Contemporary Chinese Art Volumes: Analysis of Oil Painting 1979-1999, Hubei, 1999, p. 184 (illustrated); K. Smith, The Art of Duplicity, 50%: Shanghart and Geng Jianyi, Shanghai, 1999, p. 1 (illustrated); M. Koppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare: The Chinese Avant-Garde, 1979-89, A Semiotic Analysis, Beijing, 2002, p. 61; H. Lu, ed., China Avant-Garde Art 1979 – 2004, Hebei, 2006, p. 79 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
In 1987, Geng Jianyi created one of the definitive images, and certainly the most immediately recognisable series of paintings, of the Chinese avant-garde. This was the large four-panel piece entitled The Second State, and its sister work The Second State: Big Red Double Happiness that explored the same vein - with two faces on one canvas instead of four singletons.

The huge laughing face depicted on each of the four panels was the enduring visual illustration of an ambiguity that became characteristic of Geng Jianyi's oeuvre. Whether these visages laugh at some unheard joke, or at us the audience, is left for the viewer alone to discern. It is equally likely that true to the Chinese character, they laugh at a situation for which there is no rational explanation, because there is no more suitable reaction to the circumstances. Namely, the kind of situation that seems unapproachable, without rationale, beyond logic, and naturally hard to resolve…I saw them both in New York and Hong Kong and the sensation was startlingly different. The first, looking out at an earnest audience from a democratic superpower. The second, looking at a nervously indignant audience with a less than democratic superpower waving smugly from the northern border. First vulnerable, second defiant. Ultimately, the works speak of and to Geng Jianyi's generation, and were a benchmark in the evolution of contemporary art in China. (K. Smith on www.china-avantgarde.com, adapted from “Trust Only He Who Doubts,” Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in China, Zurich, 2005)

Geng Jianyi was born in Henan in 1962 and studied oil painting at Hangzhou’s Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts. Together with Zhang Peili and other participants in the pivotal New Space movement of 1985, Geng founded the Pond Society artist collective. This southern artists’ group was famous for its “Gray Humor” which depicted urban life both critically and humorously, using reductionist techniques to depict the modern dilemma of the rational, yet alienated individual in Chinese society. For Geng’s final college examination, his Hopper-esque painting of a couple seated at a table was criticized for not showing any “positive expression.” Partially in reaction to such criticism, Geng would next produce the forced, hysterical laughter that flits across the larger-than-life visages of The Second State.

Amid the explosive Chinese art scene of the late 1980s that had been particularly galvanized by 1989’s China/Avant Garde exhibition, Geng’s mesmerizing faces rapidly became the icon du jour of psychological totalitarianism that pervaded Chinese society. The present lot, The Second State: Big Red Double Happiness is also known as “How to Smile,” as part of Geng’s cynical theme that included works titled “How to Clap” and “How to Take Off a Sweater.” “Big Red Double Happiness” refers to the traditional Chinese character for “bliss” traditionally used in marriage blessings. Here, the twinned faces’ contorted grins—now primal scream, now forced hysteria—are frozen in the eternal twilight between id and ego, in open mockery of the customary concepts of “bliss.” The Second State articulated, stunningly, the torrential angst that seized countless members of Geng’s generation in an invisible vise. Indeed, “(history) affirms Geng Jianyi as the originator of the malaise and cynicism that in China’s new art became termed Cynical Realism.” (K. Smith, Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in China, Zurich, 2005, p. 93)

In the wake of international acclaim that rained upon him with The Second State, Geng resisted the lucrative commercial path that tempted many of his fellow artists. While other Cynical Realists such as Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun went on to stupendous commercial success, Geng’s career flew from critical strength to strength. In 1993, he was one of ten Chinese artists hand-picked by Benito Oliva to participate in the 45th Venice Biennale as part of the first Chinese contingent since 1982. Geng has been featured in every major Chinese contemporary art exhibition including the seminal Inside Out: New Chinese Art exhibition and I Don’t Want to Play Cards with Cezanne, the first American exhibition of contemporary Chinese art held in Pasadena, as well as internationally renowned exhibitions such as Munster’s 2001 Sculpture Biennale. His artistic concerns center around the construction and foibles of social identities; the manner of his works is that of razor-sharp cynicism occasionally lightened with a humanist touch.

Geng’s oeuvre has today expanded to encompass performance, installation, photography, and works on paper. The Second State remains his magnum opus among his resolutely conceptual body of work. The raw, yet infinitely subtle expressions of The Second State: Big Red Double Happiness are as fresh today as they were in 1987, a gentle reminder from that radical period in history of how far things have come—or not.

517

Geng Jianyi

The Second State: Big Red Double Happiness

1987
Oil on canvas.
58 1/2 x 78 3/8 in. (148.6 x 199.1 cm).
Signed “Geng Jianyi [in Chinese and English]” on the reverse.

Estimate
£100,000 - 150,000 ‡

Sold for £456,800

China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection

The Farber Collection
13 October 2007, 7pm
London

501
Wang Guangyi
Great Criticism – Warhol
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡
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502
Chen Zhen
Un Village Sans Frontières (A Village Without Borders)
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡
Sold for £60,000
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503
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £300,000
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504
Yue Minjun
Terracotta Warriors No. 6
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £168,000
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505
Cai Guo-Qiang
Skybound UFO and Shrine
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡
Sold for £378,400
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506
Ai Weiwei
Slanted Table
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡
Sold for £66,000
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507
Zhang Xiaogang
Bloodline Series
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡
Sold for £804,000
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508
Wang Guangyi
Frozen Northern Wastelands Series - Big Dolls
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £156,000
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509
Wang Guangyi
Great Criticism: Coca-Cola
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £893,600
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510
Xu Bing
Book from the Sky
Estimate £35,000 - 45,000 ‡
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511
Wang Guangyi
Mao AO
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡
Sold for £2,036,000
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512
Wang Guangyi
Post-Classical Series: Madonna & Child
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £333,600
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513
Wang Guangyi
Little Criticism: Fruit
Estimate £80,000 - 100,000 ‡
Sold for £264,000
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514
Liu Wei
No Smoking
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £378,400
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515
Wang Qingsong
Past, Present, Future
Estimate £40,000 - 50,000 ‡
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516
Gu Wenda
Mythos of Lost Dynasties G8
Estimate £40,000 - 50,000 ‡
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517
Geng Jianyi
The Second State: Big Red Double Happiness
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £456,800
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518
Zhang Peili
X?
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 ‡
Sold for £102,000
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519
Zhang Peili
Continuous Reproduction 25 Times
Estimate £10,000 - 15,000 ‡
Sold for £10,800
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520
Zhou Xiaohu
Utopian Machine
Estimate £5,000 - 7,000 Ω
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521
Zheng Guogu
Computer Controlled by Pig's Brain! Number 19
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡
Sold for £26,400
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522
Hong Hao
Selected Scriptures I: Drawing of a Revolutionary Modern Opera
Estimate £8,000 - 12,000 ‡
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523
Huang Yong Ping
House of Oracles (study for installation)
Estimate £15,000 - 20,000 ‡
Sold for £9,000
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524
Yang Shaobin
Untitled (Head No.10)
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡
Sold for £144,000
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525
Zeng Fanzhi
Xiehe Hospital Series Triptych
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡
Sold for £2,764,000
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526
Zeng Fanzhi
Dusk No. 1
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡
Sold for £156,000
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527
Zeng Fanzhi
Artist and Model
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡
Sold for £45,600
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528
Zeng Fanzhi
Untitled
Estimate £35,000 - 45,000 ‡
Sold for £38,400
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529
Wang Qingsong
Can I Cooperate with You?
Estimate £7,000 - 9,000 ‡
Sold for £19,200
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530
Zhang Hongtu
Long Live Chairman Mao Series, #29
Estimate £5,000 - 7,000 ‡
Sold for £4,200
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531
Lin Tianmiao
Bound and Unbound (Teapots)
Estimate £5,000 - 7,000 ‡
Sold for £9,600
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532
He Sen
The Girl Biting her Hand
Estimate £10,000 - 15,000 ‡
Sold for £30,000
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533
Wang Jinsong
Modern Crowds
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £192,000
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534
Hai Bo
They No. 3
Estimate £6,000 - 8,000 ‡
Sold for £18,000
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535
Zhu Fadong
Person for Sale
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536
Zhuang Hui
Group Photograph of Military Officers and Soldiers, PLA Regiment 51410, Fourth Artillery Squadron, Hebei Province, Handan City, June 23, 1997
Estimate £5,000 - 7,000 ‡
Sold for £6,600
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537
Ma Yunfei
Zhuang Hui: Look Out! Don't Move
Estimate £8,000 - 12,000 ‡
Sold for £10,800
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538
Wang Jinsong
Parents
Estimate £7,000 - 9,000 ‡
Sold for £4,200
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539
Feng Zhengjie
Bubble No. 3
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡
Sold for £62,400
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540
He An
15 Reasons for Fashion: Hurt
Estimate £4,000 - 6,000 ‡
Sold for £3,600
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541
He An
15 Reasons for Fashion: Showoff
Estimate £4,000 - 6,000 ‡
Sold for £3,000
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542
Liu Rentao
Listless
Estimate £8,000 - 12,000 ‡
Sold for £7,440
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543
Zhang Dali
Dialogue
Estimate £5,000 - 7,000 ‡
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544
Li Wen
Cut in Half
Estimate £4,000 - 6,000 ‡
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545
Ye Yongqing
Untitled
Estimate £12,000 - 18,000 ‡
Sold for £36,000
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China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection

The Farber Collection 13 October 2007, 7pm London

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Provenance

Literature

Catalogue Essay

517

Geng Jianyi

The Second State: Big Red Double Happiness

China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection

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The Farber Collection
13 October 2007, 7pm
London