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拍品專文
The 1980s in China were fundamentally defined by Deng Xiaoping's reforms, reforms that gave artists greater access to information about Western art practices and philosophy, and a greater degree of freedom of expression in their own works. It was during this decade that Chinese artists began to seek a dialogue between contemporary art practices and their distinct historical experiences and cultural milieu. Zhang Xiaogang in particular began to develop a visual language of personal symbols that could give voice to his own subjective experiences, eventually leading him to images that are both private and full of collective meaning.
Zhang grew up under the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), a program intended to extend China's revolution but which lead primarily to an extended period of chaos and trauma for many. Like many of his contemporaries, the effects of this period on China's history and on individual fates was a central theme in his works and one that led him to a surrealist-symbolic mode of portraiture. In the early 1990s, Zhang came upon a trove of family photographs that became the basis for his seminal Bloodlines and Big Family series. In these works, Zhang appropriates the conventionalized poses and composition of the popular studio portraiture produced under communism, a time when most were trying to disappear under the pressure of a collective ideal. As he transforms these images into paintings, Zhang minimizes individual characteristics, and the figures seem faded from the wear of time. He paints these figures before a generic, industrial studio backdrop, and their conventionalized poses and passive expressions have the air of an imminent tragedy. The "bloodlines" refer to the tentative, tendon-like threads linking figures to each other or extended off the canvas to other figures not present. Zhang has stated, "We are like a big family. In this family, we must learn to confront all our blood relations: family blood, social blood, cultural blood. The unavoidable collectiveness. In this 'family', where we find concentrated so much individualism and intimacy, we constrain one another, we annihilate one another, and we depend on one another" (Forget and Remember, Beijing 2003, p. 17). In Zhang's "Bloodlines" works, these anonymous sitters seem to tremble against the burden of their obligations and with the uncertainty of the life before them.
Zhang grew up under the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), a program intended to extend China's revolution but which lead primarily to an extended period of chaos and trauma for many. Like many of his contemporaries, the effects of this period on China's history and on individual fates was a central theme in his works and one that led him to a surrealist-symbolic mode of portraiture. In the early 1990s, Zhang came upon a trove of family photographs that became the basis for his seminal Bloodlines and Big Family series. In these works, Zhang appropriates the conventionalized poses and composition of the popular studio portraiture produced under communism, a time when most were trying to disappear under the pressure of a collective ideal. As he transforms these images into paintings, Zhang minimizes individual characteristics, and the figures seem faded from the wear of time. He paints these figures before a generic, industrial studio backdrop, and their conventionalized poses and passive expressions have the air of an imminent tragedy. The "bloodlines" refer to the tentative, tendon-like threads linking figures to each other or extended off the canvas to other figures not present. Zhang has stated, "We are like a big family. In this family, we must learn to confront all our blood relations: family blood, social blood, cultural blood. The unavoidable collectiveness. In this 'family', where we find concentrated so much individualism and intimacy, we constrain one another, we annihilate one another, and we depend on one another" (Forget and Remember, Beijing 2003, p. 17). In Zhang's "Bloodlines" works, these anonymous sitters seem to tremble against the burden of their obligations and with the uncertainty of the life before them.