signed in Chinese and Pinyin and dated 2008.8.8, framed

Acquavella Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above

USA, New York, Acquavella Gallery, Zeng Fanzhi, April - May, 2009, frontispiece, p.1, p.3(installation view at artist's studio) and pl. 22
China, Suzhou Museum, Narcissus Looks for Echo: Zeng Fanzhi Suzhou Exhibition, 10 April - 7 June, 2009, p. 116

Life Magazine issue 41, China, Harbin, Modern Media Group, April 2009, p. 144
Zeng Fanzhi: Every Mark Its Mask, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Germany, 2010, p. 103
 

This work is generally in good condition. Having examined the work under ultraviolet light, there appears to be no evidence of restoration.
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Self-Portrait: The Veiled Self
Zeng Fanzhi

“My figures are all pieces of a mirror; they reflect our inner selves, and our feelings towards other entities.”

Zeng Fanzhi, the artist responsible for the Masks that have had a ubiquitous influence on the Chinese contemporary art world, has since looked towards new horizons, developing new techniques at the turn of the millennium. In a systematic “unmasking” of his characters, the figures that now appeared in the artist’s pieces had bare faces; at times scoured, at times veiled by a thin, seemingly smeared-on layer of paint. Throughout his successful career, the artist periodically looked inwards; scrutinising himself, and produced self-portraits that reflected the styles of this shifting artistic language. The piece on offer is the 2008 Self-Portrait (Lot 45), a unique work that looks both backwards and forwards to Zeng’s artistry, and is a prime example of the artist’s style in transition.

The piece depicts Zeng gazing intently at the observer; yet in contrast to this concentrated stare is body language that suggests otherwise. The character seems to have swivelled  around by chance, holding our gaze accidentally, pencil in hand. The dripping paint that cradles his right arm seems to suggest downward movement, as if the limb is about to rest by his side. Zeng is dressed in a crisp white shirt, with a navy jacket speckled with subtle red, green and yellow hues. His face and hands are smudged by a bluish shadow, and he wears a somewhat unreadable expression, verging on bewilderment and motionlessness.

The pencil clasped in his left hand is highly reflexive, a reference, perhaps, to future luan bi endeavours, governed by chance. Zeng was also to develop a technique of using two or more paintbrushes to paint with, relinquishing all power and control as his art takes over. The date of the piece is especially curious, coinciding with the first day of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The triple eight that is evoked is an auspicious Chinese trio, and its inclusion in the painting suggests that on this day, Zeng was reflecting on his own luck and position in Chinese history. The Olympics held great import nationally, but no doubt internationally as well. It represented the moment China was on the cusp of change, about to branch out to the rest of the globe. Similarly, Self-Portrait is a piece that perhaps mirrors Zeng’s own progress in both China and beyond, as his renown matures and extends itself globally.

The use of the self-portrait is also particularly significant, as Zeng’s oeuvre is only peppered with a few of such internal investigations. At various points in his artistic life Zeng produced such paintings, such as the 1994 painting which depicts him with a bulldog, umbrella in hand. In 1998 one can find portraiture of the artist amidst smashed watermelons, donning a neck-scarf. Both of these paintings were executed in a similar fashion to the gory Hospital and Meat series. In a later 2004 self-portrait, the painter’s face is heavily concealed by jarring spirals, barely recognisable. In none of these previous instances of selfimaging, however, does Zeng reflect upon his role as an artist—here depicted by the pencil in hand—which renders the current Self-Portrait a monumental piece; a first in its series.

The artist is of course not alone in his use of self-portraits. Beginning with the renowned Jan van Eyck, the concept of self-exploration has been used for centuries as a vehicle through which to meditate on the identity of the artist. Thus, from the point of view of artistic rendering, the vehicle of the self-portrait is endlessly fascinating. On the one hand, it is simply part of an oeuvre, but on the other, it is a direct representation and extension of the artist himself. And as one investigates the many layers that exist in a self-portrait, one identifies slithers of a painter’s self. Self-portraits are also important in that they represent an artist’s on-going development and creative process. But aside from this, and perhaps more importantly, they also represent a raw, naked investigation into an artist’s dramatisation of himself and his psyche. The fact that Zeng has continually reproduced such self-portraits demonstrates the artist’s preoccupation with his everchanging consciousness.

One can find Zeng’s own heroes, such as Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, also reflecting on their roles in separate pieces; especially Cézanne, who draws inspiration from both Van Gogh and van Eyck. Both these artists are posed in front of easels, paintbrushes in hand, caught in moments that epitomise their careers. Similarly in Self-Portrait, we can see Zeng ruminating on the same matter.

Zeng once commented, “My figures are all pieces of a mirror; they reflect our inner selves, and our feelings towards other entities.”¹ Curiously, this instance of reflection, which shows the originally right-handed Zeng holding a pencil in his opposite hand, is a reference to the artist’s mode of painting with his right hand, while holding a reference image in his left. This peculiar left hand is also an extension of Zeng’s preoccupation with rendering flesh. The last remnants of the red skin previously seen in Zeng’s Meat series can be found in the rawness of the present Zeng’s face and hands; the texture, however, has lost its unrealistic sheen and instead looks almost fragile. And yet, the exaggerated size of both the hands and the head still follows the style of the disproportionately large body parts that were wont to appear in Zeng’s earliest works. Perhaps the artist has even unwittingly inserted himself into his own criticism of the human condition, as if he too has been infected by the falsity that his engorged extremities represent. The blatant fragility in this piece is a rare confession on the artist’s part. The mirrored hand is also indicative of a non-truth, as if Zeng is both himself and not. This reflected left hand, a first in Zeng’s works, would be replicated later on, in works such as Self-Portrait in 2009.

The smear across the figure’s face is furthermore a prime sample of Zeng’s “wet-on-wet technique”, a method that involves using a palette knife to tug away at the paint. This was a time characterised by an attitude of “no time to think, no time to step back”,² forcing the artist to be guided by emotion rather than by rational thought. The form of the smudge is as much part of the painting as the contents of the face itself, as if momentarily stroking it before the colour is dragged away. The effect is a concealment of sorts; as if by leaving behind his infamous masks, Zeng merely stumbles back into more colours to hide behind. This can also be seen in the way the reds and blues peek through the sleeve, a result of piling paint upon paint to create an effect of gradient and gradual exposure. His eye steadily looks on through the bars of colour which hold his gaze captive, creating a unique effect of disguise.

Zeng once mentioned that he had “learned how to utilise my [his] emotion to produce a deep reflection upon a subject rather than making a painting that merely illustrated something.”³ More recently, he remarked in an interview that to him, painting was something peaceful, a kind of meditation.⁴ Considering this, Self-Portrait presents a close scrutiny of the artist’s psyche, but at the same time, in this piece we can detect a kind of distance. By presenting himself from a third person point of view, the artist offers us a critical glimpse of his being, but within this reflection exists a hint of restraint, as if the artist is cautious not to uncloak himself entirely, just yet.

1 Zeng Fanzhi, Gagosian Gallery 2011, p. 64
2 Zeng Fanzhi: Every Mark Its Mask, Hatje Cantz, 2010, p.16
3 "Zeng Fanzhi", I/We, p. 54
4 "Zeng Fanzhi: Beneath and Beyond", NOWNESS 2012