Zhang Xiaogang - Editions New York Tuesday, June 8, 2010 | 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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423

My Dear Friend

2002
Offset lithograph in colors, on Lana paper, with full margins,
I. 14 1/4 x 11 1/4 in. (36.2 x 28.6 cm);
S. 18 1/2 x 15 in. (47 x 38.1 cm)

signed and numbered 70/99 in pencil, published by Kwai Po Collection, Hong Kong, occasional soft creases (particularly along the upper sheet edge), an abrasion at upper right corner, otherwise in good condition, framed.

Estimate
$1,500 - 2,500 

Sold for $1,875

Editions

8 June 2010
New York