WENG CONTEMPORARY

SEARCH

Search
EUR
Threads of Blood-Zhang Xiaogang-1

"Threads of Blood" belongs to the set of twenty lithographs from "The Storyteller's Enchantments of Zhang Xiaogang", which comes as a limited edition of 132 rare books. Inspired by family photos from the Cultural Revolution period, as well as the European tradition of surrealism, Zhang Xiaogang’s lithographs engage with the notion of identity within the Chinese culture of collectivism. Based on his old family photographs from the Cultural Revolution as the basic framework, through this series, the artist attempts to document the scarred memory of the previous generations, moving away from Western expressionistic style and returning to the roots of the Chinese history. Like watermarks or birthmarks, they seem either disfiguring or decorative, intrinsic or a superficial mistake, and emphasize the works’ disquieting character. Appearing on all works in the series, the marks also “brand” the individuals as part of a collective and thereby associate themselves with Xiaogang’s preoccupation with the lost concept of individuality and the emphasis of collectivity during the Cultural Revolution.

“ I drew a person smiling once, but I don't think I am good at drawing people smiling. I'm better at drawing people spacing out. „

Zhang Xiaogang