Oil on canvas

250 x 200 cm. 98 3/8 x 78 3/4 in.

Signed in Chinese and English and dated on the reverse
PROVENANCE
Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong
Private Collection, Asia

The Bursting Free Will
Zhao Zhao: Constellations

Regarded as an irresistible emerging force in the contemporary art world, Zhao Zhao is often portrayed as “provocative and daring,” challenging conventional art forms with pluralist artistic creation and constructing an immense multi-dimensional space-time.

In 1982, Zhao Zhao was born in Xinjiang, where the vast land cultivated a rebellious and unruly character in him. After graduating from the Xinjiang Institute of Arts, he became an assistant to Ai Weiwei, with whom he co-produced a documentary focusing on Chinese social issues, sparking a heated discussion. Since 2011, Zhao Zhao carried out independent artistic practice. During the past ten years, he has been successively appraised as one of the “Top 10 Chinese Artists to Watch” by CoBo, the “Artist of the Year Award” in the 13th Annual Award of Art China (AAC), and one of the Modern Painters “25 Artists to Watch in 2014.” In recent years, his works have continuously won international attention and exhibited in prominent art institutions such as MoMA PS1 in New York and the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands. With works collected by more than 25 major museums around the world, Zhao Zhao has ascended into one of the most sought-after pioneers in contemporary art.

Genius Transformation of Violence and Beauty: The Constellations Series

In 2007, Zhao Zhao first showed his interest in striking impact in the Fragments series. Six years later, he created the Constellation series by shooting bullets to the glass, which gave birth to the later Constellations series in 2014. In the Constellations series, Zhao Zhao cast aside the concept of performance and satire in his previous works. Instead, he interpreted violence and beauty in the era of racing with the traditional media of canvas, once again, astonishing the art world for his excellent painting techniques and endless creative energy.

The work presented in the spring auction is from the Constellations series widely praised by both the Eastern and Western academic circles and is the largest work of the artist in the market so far. It is one of the most representative works crucial to the development of Zhao Zhao's oil painting.

The Awakened Will In Between Artistic Cracks

In Constellations, the holes that are produced by foreign objects, the slight cracks, and the faint imprints are transformed into clean, sharp, and powerful lines on the canvas. The image displays the moment when a solid object gets broken, and the internal energy bursts out, as well as the generating process of violence. Just as in Murakami's graphic creations, beneath the seemingly disorderly action of repetition lies the deliberately planned trajectory of sight. The artist created a distorted illusion effect with a variety of shades, revealing a sense of crisis on the brink of the outbreak. The work not only conveys individuals' aspirations for a sense of security but also evokes the viewer's inner strengths, demonstrating a resistance to the society of the spectacle, which is seemingly indestructible.

Differentiated from the image displaying a strong impact, the pictorial language of Constellations is delicate and refined. With slow-paced and meticulous brush strokes in dual-color of Prussian blue and titanium white, Zhao Zhao presents the most impactful “star sea,” revealing the cruelest reality with an image smooth and flawless. The radially extending lines intertwine with each other, while the destructive force infinitely expands from the picture's multiple centers, generating an odd sense of beauty between breaking and reconstruction. The huge contrast between theme and media reflects individuals' aspiration for security today, reminding the viewer of the violence that confronts them.

Price estimate:
HKD: 400,000 – 600,000
USD: 51,600 – 77,400

Auction Result:
HKD: 967,600