Lot 16: YIN ZHAOYANG B. 1970 Plaza 4 2005 signed and dated 2005 July oil on ca

YIN ZHAOYANG B. 1970 Plaza 4 2005 signed and dated 2005 July oil on canvas 59.9 x 179.4cm (23 9/16 x 70 5/8in).

Provenance Beijing Commune, Beijing Acquired directly from the above by the present owner Exhibited Max Protetch Gallery, Public Space: Yin Zhaoyang’s Solo Exhibition, New York, September 2005, p. 15 PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF MAX PROTETCH · 4 2005 :20057 :,Max Protetch,20059, 15 As a gallery owner for over fifty years, Max Protetch was driven by a broad-minded interest in the conceptual and material ways in which our environment can be shaped by creative human intervention, and how we in turn are shaped by our environment. Such openminded curiosity led Protetch to exhibit a wide range of contemporary practices over the years, from Pop to Minimal and Conceptual Art, from architectural drawings to Chinese contemporary art. Protetch opened his first gallery in 1969. Initially based in Washington, D.C., this gallery showed works by Andy Warhol, Conceptual and Minimalist artists including Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, On Kawara, Sol Lewitt and others. When he moved the gallery to New York in 1978, Protetch’s focus shifted to architectural drawings. Over the years, he worked with many masters in the field, including Tadao Andao, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and numerous others. During this time, Protetch also took an interest in contemporary art from China, and, dating back as early as 1998, he was a leading figure in bringing Chinese art to Western audiences, giving artists like Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Huan, Yue Minjun, and Fang Lijun their first New York exhibitions. Protetch additionally collected these artists’ works himself, and, recognizing the disparity between Chinese artists presence in the West and their relative lack of exhibition platforms within China, he was also an early supporter of the Beijing Commune, one of the first galleries to set up shop in the then nascent arts district known as 798. The gallery has closed its doors, leaving behind one of the most distinct profiles in the New York art world of the last half-century. The present lot, Plaza IV from the painter Yin Zhaoyang, comes from Protetch’s personal collection and perfectly reflects his thoughtful, meditative taste. Yin presents a long, narrow horizontal canvas. From a starless black sky and a deeply red, earthy ground emerges the plaza , gently aglow as if by a mysterious internal light. The building pictured is the Great Hall of the People, built in Beijing in 1959. The building looms over the Western side of Tian’anmen Square. The hall is home to China’s annual legislative and ceremonial meetings, where the Chinese parliament, National People’s Congress, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and National Congress of the Communist Party all hold their sessions. Its symbolic and material significance cannot be understated. ·(Max Protetch)50 1969, ·(Andy Warhol),·(Carl Andre) ·(Donald Judd)·(Dan Flavin) (On Kawara)·(Sol Lewitt) 1978, (Tadao Andao)·(Frank Gehry)· (Zaha Hadid)·(Rem Koolhaas) ,1998 ,798 , (Plaza IV) , 45 Fig. 2 Jasper Johns B. 1930, Three Flags, 1958. Encaustic on canvas, 78.4 x 115.6 x 12.7 cm. Credit: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA/Bridgeman Images. ,,1958, © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY Fig. 1 Gerhard Richter B. 1932, Verwaltungsgebäude (Administrative Building), 1964. Oil on linen, 97.79 cm x 149.86 cm. The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. ,,1964, Doris and Donald Fisher © Gerhard Richter 46 Born in 1970, Yin is from a younger generation of Chinese painters whose personal experience of communism was limited. His works reference neither the personal tragedy nor the angry satire found in Political Pop, Gaudy Art, or in the Cynical Realists. Instead his approach harkens back to the Western artists of the 1960s and 1970s who also took a coolly distanced view of their cultural environs (fig. 1, 2). Yin’s works rest in a similar ambiguity. The hall itself is neutral, almost ethereal. The suggestion of gathering figures reminds us that the square itself is a popular promenade, heavily visited in all weather and at all times of day. There is a suggestion of figures milling about in the darkness, moving tentatively into the light. They seem magnetically drawn to the great hall, suggesting a mystery, not quite ominous but curious, as to the motivation of this gathering night-time crowd. The format recalls that of a tourist postcard. Yin has removed the Monument to the People’s Heroes which sits at the center of the square, heightening the isolation of the building, emerging from darkness, and the dream-like quality of the scene. Although plainly recognizable, Yin’s subtle distortion of the image as well as his handling of the composition create an ambiguous, reflective quality, demystifying the iconic hall and allowing for its subjective repurposing for a new generation. 1970 19601970 , , 47 A HISTORIC EARLY PAINTING BY ZENG FANZHI LOT 17 Fig 2. Zeng Fanzhi B. 1964, A Man in Melancholy, 1990. Oil on canvas, 100 x 90 cm. ,,1990, © 2017 Zeng Fanzhi 50