Photograph Edition: 6/10

88×120 cm. 34 5/8×47 1/4 in.

LITERATURE
2004, Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection, ShanghART Project, Shanghai
2013, Quote Out of Context Solo Exhibition of Yang Fudong, China Academy of Art Press, Hangzhou, appendix
2013, Yang Fudong, JRP
Ringier, Zurich, p.37
2016, The Chinese Photobook Collection: Yang Fudong, Three Shadows, Photography Art Center, Beijing United Publishing Co., Ltd, Beijing
EXHIBITED (different edition)
19 Feb – 28 Mar 2004, Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai
23 Feb – 15 May 2005, Don't worry, It will be better, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienne
9 Aug – 26 Oct 2008, China in Transition YANG FUDONG, Gammel Strand, Copenhagen
30 Sep 2012 – 30 Jan 2013, Quote Out of Context Solo Exhibition of Yang Fudong, OCAT, Shanghai
6 Apr – 26 May 2013, Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993-2013, Zurich Art Museum, Zurich
21 Aug – 1 Dec 2013, Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993-2013, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, San Francisco
9 Nov 2017 – 3 Jan 2018, Image Core Sample, chi K11 art museum, Shanghai

PROVENANCE
ShanghART, Shanghai
Private Collection, Asia

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai and an artwork label signed by the artist

Note: This work is from a total edition of 10 and 2 A.P.

Lens at Millennium's Turn
Celebrating the Classical Conceptual Photography of China

Born in 1967, 1969, and 1971 respectively, Cang Xin, Qiu Zhijie, and Yang Fudong stand as exemplars of Chinese conceptual photography movement. This spring auction presents key works by this trio: Yang Fudong's Don't Worry, It Will Be Better... (Lot 96), Qiu Zhijie's Tattoo I (Lot 97), and Cang Xin's To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain (Lot 98).

Yang Fudong is hailed as one of the most essential figures in contemporary Chinese video art. After graduating from the Oil Painting Department of the China Academy of Art in 1995, he began dedicating himself to time-based media, deploying lyrical storytelling, multi-faceted cultural perspectives, and chromatic disruptions to articulate the evolving conditions of his generation.

Qiu Zhijie graduated from the China Academy of Art in 1992. From 2003 to 2016, he served as a professor at his alma mater, as well as vice president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and president of the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts.

Cang Xin frequently employs ritualised performative gestures to interrogate individual existence and collective culture. From 1986 to 1989, he studied music, art, and philosophy at the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, Nankai University, and the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts.

Refracting Ideal and Reality

Executed in 2000, Don't Worry, It Will Be Better... is the fifth in an eight-photograph series under the same title, depicting a beautiful woman surrounded by four admirers. The protagonist appears poised and comfortable in the warm-hued hotel setting, seemingly revelling in material and emotional pleasures. Yet the actions of the five figures are perplexing, their interpersonal dynamics murky and emotionally distant. The text "Don't Worry, It Will Be Better..." introduces a cultural disjuncture. Through this juxtaposition, the artist harnesses the contagious power of vernacular sloganeering to prompt contemplation of the nuanced interplay between societal ideals and lived realities.

Debating Identity Through Body and Symbol

Qiu Zhijie's exploration of "identity" is a recurrent thread, exemplified by his pioneering Tattoo series initiated in 1994. Using his own body as a canvas, Qiu either inscribed it with text, or affixed various materials, photographing himself against a plain white wall. The repeated graphic patterns seemingly merge the artist's form with the wall, relegating him to the pictorial background while the punctuating the tack-like circular motifs in the foreground. This visual conceit gestures towards the ambiguous relationship between the individual and their environment.Are the external labels and value systems subsuming the human subject, or is it the self autonomously choosing these symbolic adornments? Qiu's Tattoo compel us to ponder this dialectic.

The Measure of Existence, the Metric of Flesh

In 1995, Cang Xin and fellow members of the pioneering Beijing East Village collective travelled to the outskirts of Beijing to enact the performance work To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain. Completely nude, they stacked their bodies atop one another, forming a small mound on the grassy terrain. This landmark work heralded a philosophical turn in Chinese art. Exemplified by iterations held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Princeton University Art Museum, M+, Tate, and Queensland Art Gallery, To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain stands as one of the most seminal achievements in the annals of Chinese photographic art.

Price estimate:
HKD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 5,100 – 7,700