Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang was born to parents Qi Ailan and Zhang Jing (both government officials) in the city of Kunming in China's Yunnan province in 1958, and was the third of four brothers.[2] Zhang's mother, Qi Ailan taught him how to draw as an exercise to keep him out of trouble:

"From early on, my parents worried that I would go out and get into trouble. They gave us paper and crayons so we could draw at home. . . . I gained more and more interest in art. I had a lot of time, because I didn't have to go to school. My interest increased. After I became an adult, I never gave up art. So that's how I started to draw."[3]

His parents were taken away for 3 years by the Chinese government for re-education. [3]He came of age during the 1960s and 1970s political upheavals known as the Cultural Revolution, which exerted a certain influence on his painting.

In early 1976, Xiaogang was sent to work on a farm as part of the "Down to the Countryside Movement".[2] Chinese water color painter, Lin Ling trained Xiaogang in 1975, teaching him formal water color and sketching techniques.

"When I was 17, I told myself I wanted to be an artist. . . I felt that art was like a drug. Once you are addicted, you can't get rid of it."[4]

Upon the reinstitution of collegiate entrance exams, Xiaogang was accepted into the Sichuan Academy of Fine arts in 1977 where he began study oil based painting in 1978. At the time of his collegiate education, Zhang's professors continued to teach styles of Revolutionary Realism as instituted by Chairman Mao. This only served to inspire Xiaogang and his peers to opt for topics of western philosophy and introspective individualism while shunning political and ideological subject matter.

In 1982, he graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in the city of Chongqing in Sichuan province but was denied a teaching post he had hoped for. This led Zhang to fall into a period of depression between 1982 and 1985. During this time he worked as a construction worker and art director for a social dance troupe in Kunming. It was a time of intense self-examination for Xiaogang as he had difficulties fitting into society. Suffering from alcoholism, he was hospitalized in 1984 with alcohol induced internal bleeding causing him to paint "The Ghost Between Black and White" series which put visual form to his visions of life and death in the hospital.[5]

"At that time, my inspiration primarily came from the private feelings I had at the hospital. When I lay on the white bed, on the white bed sheet, I saw many ghost-like patients comforting each other in the crammed hospital wards. When night dawned, groaning sounds rose above the hospital and some of the withering bodies around had gone to waste and were drifting on the brink of death: these deeply stirred my feelings. They were so close to my then life experiences and lonely miserable soul."[6]

In 1985, Xiaogang began to emerge from the dark time in his life and joined the New Wave movement in China that saw a philosophical, artistic and intellectual explosion in Chinese culture.

Zhang formed the South West Art Group in 1986 including fellow artists, Mao Xuhui, Pan Dehei, and Ye Yongqing among more than 80 others. The group moved for 'an anti-urban regionalism' and also explored individual desire which according to Zhang had been suppressed by collectivist rationalization. They created self funded exhibitions which were a foundational step in the Chinese Avant-Garde movement.

In 1988, Zhang was appointed as an instructor at Sichuan Academy's Education Department and married later that year. He took part in the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition in 1989 at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. However, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre abruptly ended this period of liberal reform.

Zhang Xiaogang pursued the expressive and surreal style until the 1980s and early 90s. But after his trip to Europe in 1992, his style changes greatly.[7]

Zhang traveled to Germany in 1992 for 3 months gaining unprecedented perspective on his own Chinese cultural identity. Upon returning he had a newfound desire to explore and revitalize his own personal past along with recent Chinese history through painting.

During his three - month stay in Germany, Zhang spent most of his time analyzing works by Western artists in museums. And he thought about his position as a Chinese artist. He said "I looked from the 'early phase' to the present for a position for myself, but even after this I still didn't know who I was. But an idea did emerge clearly: if I continue being an artist, I have to be an artist of 'China.'"[8][9]

In Europe, too, Zhang begins to think about the Chinese face and reflects why he has brought images of people in books and magazines, not in actual surroundings.[8][9]

Returning from Europe, Zhang Xiaogang was engaged in painting activities at Mao Xuhui's studio. He picked Tiananmen Square as the first theme and painted it using expressive strong brush touch. It also begins to survey the faces of the surrounding Chinese. At this time, the photographs of the past quadruple found at the parents' house became a dramatic turning point. Drawing on a surrealism realistic painting, he abandons the style and begins to draw a flat picture. It also represents a Chinese identity by expressing a single eyelid.[8][9]

Had a major conceptual breakthrough after discovering his family photos which reminded him of the memories destroyed by the contextual cultural setting of the time.

"I felt very excited, as if a door had opened. I could see a way to paint the contradictions between the individual and the collective and it was from this that I started really to paint. There's a complex relationship between the state and the people that I could express by using the Cultural Revolution. China is like a family, a big family. Everyone has to rely on each other and to confront each other. This was the issue I wanted to give attention to and, gradually, it became less and less linked to the Cultural Revolution and more to people's states of mind."

Xiaogang was particularly inspired by a photograph of his mother as a young attractive woman, a far cry from sickly, schizophrenic woman she had become. Led him to paint the BLOODLINES series which illustrated the entanglement of private and public life. In the mid 1990s, he exhibited all over the world including Brazil, France, Australia, UK and the US.[5]

'Bloodline: Big Family series' of Zhang Xiaogang were exhibited The Other Face: Three Chinese Artists as part of the larger international exhibition Identità e Alterità, installed in the Italian Pavilion during the centenary 46th Venice Biennale in 1995.[10]

Like Wang Guangyi, Xu Beihong and Wu Guanzhong, Zhang Xiaogang is a best-selling contemporary Chinese artist and a favorite of foreign collectors.[11] His paintings feature prominently in the 2005 film Sunflower.

In 2007, a canvas of his sold for US$6 million at Sotheby's[12] while in April 2011 his 1988 triptych oil work Forever Lasting Love, of half-naked figures in an arid landscape suffused with mystical symbols, sold for HK$79 million (US$10.1 million), a record auction price for a contemporary artwork from China, in Hong Kong.[13][14]

He is represented by Pace Gallery in New York/Beijing and Beijing Commune in Beijing for his prints.

Zhang, like other Chinese contemporary artists at one time, was not able to exhibit in China because his works were too modern and suspicious. But now his paintings are popular in China as well not just in Western society so now he has chances to exhibit at museums and galleries in China compared in the past.[15][16]

In recent years, he has expanded not only his oil painting works, but also his installation works of sculpture works.[17]

Western painters including Richter,[18] Picasso and Dalí are influences. Zhang said: "I read in a book once a few words by British experimental artist Eduardo Paolozzi, which were very influential for me: 'a person can very easily have the right idea, but choose the wrong means to express it. Or he can have the right means, but lack a clear idea.'" Zhang also cites his discovery of photos of his mother as a young, attractive woman as a key inspiration for the Bloodline series.

After participating "I Don't Want to Play Cards with Cézanne" and Other Works, organized by the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California, Zhang started thinking about his way of work and decided not to paint same way with famous Western art and be an independent artist.[19]

Referring to the Bloodline paintings, Zhang noted that old photographs "are a particular visual language" and says: "I am seeking to create an effect of 'false photographs' — to re-embellish already 'embellished' histories and lives." He said: "On the surface the faces in these portraits appear as calm as still water, but underneath there is great emotional turbulence. Within this state of conflict the propagation of obscure and ambiguous destinies is carried on from generation to generation."

Regarding the influences of China's political upheavals on his paintings, Zhang said, "For me, the Cultural Revolution is a psychological state, not a historical fact. It has a very strict connection with my childhood, and I think there are many things linking the psychology of the Chinese people today with the psychology of the Chinese people back then."

Regarding the portrait-like format of the works, he noted, "Posing for a photograph, people already display a certain formality. It is already something artificial. What I do is increase this artificiality and this sense of formalism."

Asked about the full title of the Bloodline series. Bloodline: the Big Family, Zhang said:

We all live 'in a big family'. The first lesson we have to learn is how to protect ourselves and keep our experiences locked up in an inner chamber away from the prying eyes of others, while at the same time living in harmony as a member of this big family. In this sense, the "family" is a unit for the continuity of life and an idealized mechanism for procreation. It embodies power, hope, life, envy, lies, duty and love. The 'family' becomes the standard model and the focus for the contradictions of life experiences. We interact and depend on each other for support and assurance.

The Bloodline paintings often feature small patches of colour, which are open to a variety of interpretations.

"Mother and Son"

This is the first Bloodline series Zhang Xiaogang painted as his mother in 1993. It is a picture of a distinctly different style from the Bloodline series we now know. No-face figures appear, but they have their own individuality and can pinpoint the elements that they want to talk about from place to place in the picture.[20]

As the series progresses, the figures in Zhang Xiaogang's paintings become blurred and the clothes change to Mao suites. His distinctive face, the small eyes and the slender face, which he created, are characteristic of his paintings.[7]

Two comrades with red baby

'Two comrades with red baby' is one of Zhang Xiaogang's "Bloodline: The Big Family" series from China and is currently on display at the National Gallery of Australia. The painting measures 150.0 cm high x 180.0 cm wide and was painted with oil on canvas.[21] This picture, which was created with the motif of a black and white family photograph found in 1993 when he visited his parents' house, is a two-comrades behind the title and a red baby in the center. There are white traces in common on the left cheek of three expressionless people, and thin red lines connect them. The faces, hair styles, fashion, facial expressions, and the like of the characters that appear almost identical in this work convey the social atmosphere that was uniform in Mao period. The red child symbolizing the Red Guards in the era of the Cultural Revolution represents the phenomenon that even the parents were accusing at the time, but the red line connecting the three characters indicates that these three are family members. The white traces on these cheeks represent their indelible wounds.</ref name=sothebys.com> Zhang said baby like a seed of evil, not of joy in his painting.[7]

Their unfocused eyes appear to be looking at the viewer. In other words, the viewer can feel their painful feelings in painting by facing their eyes. In other words, Zhang's painting is the medium through which we can communicate with those of the past.[22]

Father and Daughter

Unlike his work, which started as a mother and son in the 2000s, father and daughter emerge. Also, Unlike the works of the 90s, it is mainly light gray rather than black, giving a brighter atmosphere, but it is also ambiguous. The elements that have been regarded as representatives of the Mao era are disappearing and focusing on the expression of the characters. The white patches are reddish and so are more prominent.[23]

• Bronze Prize at the 22nd São Paulo Biennial Exhibition in Brazil in 1994.
• Document Prize at the First Academic Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art held at the China National Museum of Fine Arts and Hong Kong Art Centre in 1996.
• Prize for Contemporary New Asian Artists granted by the British Court's International Art Fund in Hong Kong.

• Ai Weiwei
• Wang Guangyi
• Zhang Huan
• Yang Jiechang
• Zheng Guogu
• Xu Bing
• Shen Jingdong

• Lovelace, Carey. "Zhang Xiaogang at Max Protetch." Art in America 89, no. 3 (March 2001): 132.
• Thomson, Jonathan. "Zhang Xiaogang, History's Public Face." Asian Art News 14, no. 3 (May/June 2004): 44–49.
• Gao Minglu. Inside Out: New Chinese Art (San Francisco: SFMoMA, 1998)
• Healy, Anthony. Gentle Reminders. World Art (Australia) no. 3 (1996): 16–19, 5 illus. (Feature Article on Zhang Xiaogang)

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