Lot 774: WANG JINSONG

WANG JINSONG B.1963 MODERN PEOPLE (8 PANELS) signed in Pinyin and dated 1996 oil on canvas each panel: 230.2 by 77.1 cm.; 90 5/8 by 30 3/8 in. overall: 230,2 by 616.8 cm.; 90 5/8 by 242 7/8 in.

Newcastle, Tyne and Weir Museum; Birmingham, Midlands Arts Centre; Manchester, The Museum of Science and Industry, Representing The People, 1999, pp. 129 and 132

The key to Wang Jinsong's work is social change and upheaval, the mutation of culture in China from the shambles of recent decades into the something approximating modernity, a la western style.

The happy aura enveloping his work continues to be a feature of more recent paintings like the grand eight panel work Modern Crowds. Here, although white areas remain, they serve a more artistic purpose. They exist, but like the past becoming the past and of less significance to the present time, the focus falls more poignantly on the multitude of figures depicted on the canvas. It is hard to explain to those who have never visited China, and only of modern China from mitigating political news reports in the West, how accurately this painting reflects the current social climate. It is full of subtleties that are instantly recognizable to any Chinese and that make the works the subject of heated and excited debate by the Chinese audience, not as to the merits of the painting, but to the present social situation.

Karen Smith and Pi Li, editors. Representing the People. Exhibition catalogue for a show at the Chinese Arts Center, Manchester, UK, 1998, excerpts pp. 131 – 133.