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◆ ✱ 12 Pioneers of Modernism: A Selection from The Scheeres Collection Zhang Xiaogang Follow Bloodline: Big Family No.9 1996 signed and dated 'Zhang Xiaogang [in Chinese] 1996 Zhang Xiaogang [in Pinyin]' lower right oil on canvas 148.7 x 189.2 cm. (58 1/2 x 74 1/2 in.) Painted in 1996.
Provenance Serieuze Zaken Gallery, Amsterdam Private Collection, The Netherlands Acquired from the above by the present owner Exhibited Beijing, Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Zhang Xiaogang Bloodline: The Big Family 1997 , 13 - 25 December 1997, n.p. (illustrated) Finland, Sara Hilden Art Museum, Zhang Xiaogang , 22 September 2007 - 13 January 2008, p. 34 (illustrated); further illustrated on exhibition invitation The Netherlands, Groninger Museum, Go China! Writing on the Wall: Chinese New Realism and Avant-Garde in the Eighties and Nineties , 23 March - 26 October 2008, pp. 114-115 (illustrated) Literature Hanart TZ Gallery, Umbilical Cord of History: Paintings by Zhang Xiaogang , Hong Kong, 2004, p. 96 (illustrated) Gary G. Xu and Jonathan Fineberg, Zhang Xiaogang Disquieting Memories , London, 2015, no. 66, p. 102 (illustrated) Rosa Maria Falvo and Bruce Gordon Doar eds., BLOODLINES:The Zhang Xiaogang Story , Italy, 2016, p. 342 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Presenting an extremely rare rendition by highly sought-after contemporary Chinese artist Zhang Xiaogang Bloodline: Big Family No. 9 offers a master work from his most compelling body of works- the Bloodline (1993 – 1999) series. The iconic three-member family portrait has been described as being modelled after a photograph of the artist's brother as an infant and his parents. Existing between the collective vision of socialist China and his own dissonant voice, Zhang created the very first 'family' painting as a mode to negotiate the conflicts of group versus individual identity in early 1990s China. As a result of this series of meticulously rendered solitary figures and family clusters inspired by the artist’s Cultural Revolution-era family photographs, Zhang’s reputation grew significantly, especially after the artist was invited to exhibit several paintings from this seminal body of works in the world’s most important venues including the 1994 São Paulo Biennial and the 1995 Venice Biennale. Since then, Zhang’s esteem and the particular distinction of Bloodline has only grown to garner increasing critical attention and international acclaim. (K. Markley, 'Zhang Xiaogang Artist Index and the Bloodline Series,' Artnet News , February 26, 2012) Fresh to the market, Bloodline: Big Family No. 9 exemplifies a mature work by an artist accredited as one of the leading figures of contemporary Chinese art. Imbuing an intricate psychological dimension to the present lot, all three members of Bloodline: Big Family No. 9 stare solemnly straight-ahead towards the viewer. Around the right sides of the woman’s mouth, baby’s forehead and man’s eye, blocks or patches of light furthermore resemble birth marks, aged film, symbols of social stigma, or, alternatively, a “lingering sense of the sitter’s self-assertion.” (‘Zhang Xiaogang,’ Saatchi Gallery Artist Profile) Positioned around a baby based directly on the artist’s brother, illustrated in a bright red colour, the young man and woman—drawn from Zhang’s mother and father—wear modest cotton jackets and conservative haircuts, customs indexical to the Cultural Revolution era. While red is auspicious in Chinese culture, Zhang’s proclivity towards this hue also references the ubiquitous Mao-era slogan, “the Red, Bright and Illuminous” (紅、光、亮), a statement that prescribed the homogenised socialist realist style characterised by the “sleek surface” and filtered, “theatrical illumination” mandated of all art created during that time. (Gao M.L. quoted in 1995 in J. Chi Zhang, ‘The Meaning of Style: Postmodernism, Demystification, and Dissonance in Post-Tiananmen Chinese Avant-Garde Art,’ in R. Eyerman and L. McCormick, Myth, Meaning, And Performance: Toward A New Cultural Sociology Of The Arts , New York: Routledge, 2016) Infused from birth with the revolutionary colour of the red flag to furthermore signal the 'birth' of a new political regime, the red baby also appeared in Zhang’s earlier momentous painting exhibited