Zeng Fanzhi's experiments with animals a hit
- Source: Global Times
- [09:30 August 18 2010]
- Comments
Zeng Fanzhi poses with one of his artworks. Photos: Courtesy of Rockbund Art Musuem
By Huang Xi
Zeng Fanzhi, "the most expensive contemporary artist" in China, is having an exhibition. If you are traveling along the Suzhou Creek near the Bund it will be hard to miss. In large black letters on the blue wall of the Rockbund Art Museum is inscribed "2010 Zeng Fanzhi."
The exhibition 2010 Zeng Fanzhi unveils his latest oil paintings and sculptures, following his popular adopted style but introducing sculptures into his creativity. Also on display are earlier sketches, watercolor paintings and copperplates.
As one of the leaders of China's contemporary art, Zeng is famous for his powerful expressionism which originated from the German Expressionism School, and the exhibition begins on the ground floor with his stylish oil painting, Untitled 10-7-5.
The bloodied skinned, gutted animal corpse in the painting seems to belong to a slaughterhouse, perhaps "a connection with Zeng's past, his present and his future," according to Wu Hong, the curator and the director of the Center for the Art of East Asia at the University of Chicago.
Stepping up to the second floor, his "contemporary and future" art world is vividly presented. At the doorway stands the sculpture Covered Lamb, made of golden-silk nanmu wood. The shape and the form of the lamb resemble that of the ground floor painting, but the beast is now covered with a blanket.
Golden-silk nanmu wood is sometimes used to make coffins in China. The work, perhaps, suggests the artist is giving up the "mask" style that he has been painting for 10 years, saying: "I can't destroy my art life for money even if someone gives me 100 million yuan ($14.71 million) for 20 masks. I need to step forward. I am already there, on a new stage."
Zeng makes it clear that this "covered" style will be retained, "maybe in some new ways," he said.
In the showroom, two large 10-meter oil paintings, This Land Is So Rich in Beauty, hang opposite each other, examples of his "disordered brush" style, another style used frequently by the artist in recent years. These are the largest works Zeng has completed.
The two paintings are almost similar in color and form, like mirrors reflecting each other.
"I like to present a contrast for visitors, so they can view and then study the details carefully. This will help them learn more about Zeng and his styles," Wu said.
The most attractive exhibits are found on the fourth and fifth floors, where the floors interlink and share a high ceiling. The most splendid of these attractions is the Tusks of a Mammoth, a pair of suspended 3.4-meter wooden tusks.
He spent more than one year creating this and had planned to make an entire mammoth at the beginning.
